I        ^'     \J  .   "O  1^  "I  w/ 


Goodell,  Charles  L.  1854 

1937. 
Pastor  and  evangelist 


PASTOR  AND  EVANGELIST 
CHARLES  L.  GOODELL 


\V 


PASTOR 


.*-N^    .- 


AND  EVANGELIS 


BY 


/ 


CHARLES  L.  GOODELL 

SECRETARY,    COMMISSION    ON    EVANGELISM    AND    LIFE    SERVICE    OF 

THE    FEDERAL    COUNCIL    OF   THE    CHURCHES    OF    CHRIST 

IN    AMERICA 

Author  of  ^'-Heralds  of  a  Passion"  etc. 


NEW  XBjr  YORK 
GEORGE  H.  DORAN  COMPANY 


COPYRIGHT,    1922, 
BY    GEORGE    H.    DORAN    COMPANY 


PASTOR    AND    EVANGELIST.       II 


PRINTED    IN    THE    UNITED    STATES    OF    AMERICA 


TO    MY    FRIEND 

ROBERT  SCOTT 

A    LOVER    OF    THE    TRUTH 


PREFACE 

To  Timotliy  Paul  said,  *^Stir  up  the  gift  of 
God  that  is  in  thee/'  I  would  like  to  sound  as 
best  I  may  the  same  ringing  challenge  to  the  min- 
istry of  to-day.  There  are  so  many  things  that 
claim  the  pastor's  time  and  thought  that  unless 
he  is  very  careful  the  fine  edge  of  his  spiritual 
life  will  be  dulled.  Then,  too,  he  is  quite  likely  to 
become  a  hewer  of  wood  and  a  drawer  of  water,  a 
server  of  tables,  a  promoter  and  an  agent  instead 
of  a  prophet  of  God.  ^* Fulfill  thy  ministry,"  said 
the  apostle  to  his  son  in  the  Gospel.  Many  things 
enter  into  the  pastor's  ministry.  He  must  be  a 
student,  he  must  be  a  preacher,  he  must  be  a 
teacher  and  a  citizen,  but  everything  that  he  does 
is  of  value  only  as  it  makes  possible  the  one  thing 
for  which  he  is  in  the  ministry.  Even  preach- 
ing, which  is  doubtless  the  highest  function  of  the 
ministry,  is  only  a  means  to  an  end.  If  the  great 
end  is  not  accomplished,  how  futile  becomes  the 
means ! 

In  these  chapters  I  have  tried  to  put  first  things 
first.  What  is  the  call  of  the  hour?  What  is  the 
demand  which  the  Church  is  facing?  How  can 
pastors  best  fulfill  their  function  as  leaders  in  thd 

vii 


viii  PREFACE 

spiritual  life  of  the  age?  What  is  it  which  the 
spirit  would  say  unto  the  churches?  Much  of 
our  contention  about  formal  religious  truth  is 
meaningless  and  void.  It  eventuates  in  nothing. 
^^The  words  that  I  speak  unto  you,"  said  Jesus, 
^^are  spirit  and  life." 

I  have  much  to  say  here  on  the  subject  of  Chris- 
tian nurture  in  the  home.  I  am  jfirmly  convinced 
that  there  has  been  incalculable  loss  in  religious 
life  because  there  has  been  so  little  inculcation  of 
prayer  and  Bible  study  at  home.  I  wish  some 
word  of  mine  might  help  to  stimulate  a  sane,  in- 
telligent Christian  life  in  the  home  which  is  the 
center  of  everything  that  is  worth  while  in  moral- 
ity and  religion.  I  wish  I  might  have  given  other 
chapters  on  the  training  of  the  Sunday  School. 
Next  to  the  home,  this  is  the  field  of  greatest  use- 
fulness in  the  development  of  Christian  life,  and 
full  of  unrealized  possibilities.  In  other  books  of 
mine,  notably  in  Pastoral  and  Personal  Evan- 
gelism^  I  have  spoken  at  length  and  with  deep 
conviction  concerning  the  spiritual  work  of  the 
Sunday  School.  There  I  have  set  forth  prin- 
ciples which  I  wish  here  to  reaffirm.  With  im- 
proved methods  of  teaching,  I  urge  that  the  evan- 
gelistic note  which  is  sounded  throughout  this 
book  should  be  especially  enforced  by  pastors  and 
Sunday  School  teachers. 

Some  of  these  chapters  have  been  given  in  sub- 
stance before  great  denominational  gatherings  of 


PREFACE  ix 

the  churches  and  before  conferences  and  associa- 
tions of  ministers  throughout  the  country.  I 
wish  to  thank  the  Homiletic  Review  and  the  Bibli- 
cal Review  for  permission  to  use  articles  of  mine 
which  they  have  published.  Messages  from  many 
gatherings  of  pastors  where  some  of  these  ad- 
dresses have  been  given  encourage  me  to  hope 
that  they  may  help  to  quicken  the  evangelistic 
impulse  of  some  who  have  not  heard  the  spoken 
word ;  and  many  have  asked  that  they  might  have 
the  message  in  the  permanent  form  in  which  I 
now  give  it.  In  all  this  I  am  speaking  out  of  a 
long  and  happy  ministry  spent  in  an  honest  pur- 
pose to  do  the  things  which  I  here  set  forth. 

'^  And  now,  brethren,  I  commend  you  to  God  and 
to  the  word  of  His  Grace  which  is  able  to  build 
you  up  and  give  you  an  inheritance  among  all 
those  who  are  sanctified." 


CONTENTS 


PIv£iFAC£i  •  •  •  • 

CHAPTER 

I  THE  PASTOR-EVANGELIST 

II  EVANGELISM    FOR    THE    TIMES 

III  THE  JESUS  WE  FORGET 

IV  THE  PASTOR  AND   HIS  OWN  SOUL 
V  THE    HOME-GOING    PASTOR     . 

VI  THE  HOUSE  OF  OBED-EDOM  . 

VII  ACCIDENTAL    EVANGELISM  . 

VIII  THE  PASTOlf^AT  EPHESUS  . 

IX  THE  PASTOR  AT   SARDIS 

X  THE  PASTOR   AT  LAODICEA  . 

XI      THE  PASTOR  AT  PHILADELPHIA 

/      — 

XII      THE  pastor-evangelist's  OUTLOOK 

XIII  THE  pastor-evangelist's  MESSAGE 

XIV  THE   pastor-evangelist's   REWARD 


PAQB 

vii 

13 

21 

36 

48 

61 

64 

71 

77 

87 

95 

102 

109 

116 

122 


XI 


PASTOR  AND  EVANGELIST 


PASTOR 
AND   EVANGELIST 

CHAPTEE  I 

THE   PASTOR-EVANGELIST 

The  swing  of  the  pendulum  to-day  is  toward 
pastoral  evangelism.  The  church  is  glad  to  recall 
those  great  days  when  men  with  special  evangel- 
istic call  went  forth  to  do  a  peculiar  work.  She 
is  glad  to  give  her  assent  to  the  declaration  of 
Paul  to  the  Ephesians  that  there  are  men  whom 
God  has  crowned  with  special  gifts,  some  apostles, 
some  prophets,  some  evangelists,  some  pastors 
and  teachers,  for  the  common  end  of  perfecting 
the  saints  for  the  work  of  the  ministry,  for  the 
edifying  of  the  hody  of  Christ.  But  there  is  a 
growing  feeling  that  the  average  pastor  may  be 
at  the  same  time  prophet,  evangelist  and  teacher, 
that  for  every  man  signally  set  apart  of  God  to 
some  peculiar  task,  there  are  scores  to  whom 
God  has  given  such  capacity  of  spiritual  service 
as  to  fit  them  to  perform  the  full  orbed  task  of  a 
pastor.    The  principle  here  involved  is  the  same 

13 


14  PASTOR  AND  EVANGELIST 

as  that  of  the  father  and  mother  in  the  up-bring- 
ing of  the  child.  Special  teachers  may  be  called 
in,  but  after  all  in  the  development  of  life  and 
character  no  factor  is  so  important  as  that  of 
the  father  and  mother  who  by  turns  perform  the 
function  of  guide,  physician  and  teacher. 

To  Timothy  Paul  said,  do  the  work  of  an  evan- 
gelist, but  he  also  said,  make  full  proof  of  thy 
ministry.  The  most  fruitful  field  of  evangelistic 
work  is  that  which  opens  to  the  pastor  and  those 
whom  he  is  to  lead  in  life  and  service.  If  it  is  true 
that  people  will  not  go  now  as  formerly  to  the 
great  evangelistic  gatherings  in  tent  and  taber- 
nacle, then  there  is  all  the  more  need  that  the  pas- 
tor into  whose  hands  has  been  laid  the  spiritual 
welfare  of  the  community,  should  go  to  his  people 
with  the  blessed  evangel  in  his  soul.  The  truth 
for  which  the  world  is  crying  is  a  truth  that  is 
translated  into  action.  It  is  a  truth  which  must 
fall  from  eager  lips  and  be  prompted  by  a  yearn- 
ing heart.  Here  lies  the  success  of  every  man's 
ministry  and  the  true  progress  of  the  Church 
of  God.  The  Church  can  live  in  the  world  only 
by  individual  transference  from  the  natural  to  the 
spiritual  kingdom.  It  is  by  the  personal  evangel- 
istic appeal  that  the  Church  is  to  make  its  real 
advance.  When  things  seem  becalmed,  when  the 
sky  is  low  and  gray,  it  is  then  that  we  cry  for 
the  evangel  of  prophets  and  pastors  and  not  for 
the  vaporings  of  philosophers  and  liberalists. 


THE  PASTOR-EVANGELIST  15 

When  that  spirit  takes  possession  of  the  pastor, 
a  new  era  dawns  in  his  own  soul  and  in  the  life 
of  his  Church.  I  cannot  do  better  than  to  call 
your  attention  to  a  notable  example  in  the 
life  of  one  of  the  most  successful  pastors  in 
America.  Perhaps  no  man  in  the  Congregational 
Church  more  influenced  his  own  denomination 
than  Constance  L.  Goodell.  In  his  early  ministry 
at  New  Britain,  Conn.,  his  heart  was  greatly 
burdened  because  he  saw  almost  no  evidences  of 
spiritual  success  in  his  ministry.  With  a  splendid 
Church  behind  him  in  the  four  years  from  '61  to 
'65  none  were  received  into  his  Church  by  pro- 
fession of  faith. 

Utterly  discouraged,  he  seriously  considered 
taking  up  some  other  work,  but  in  1865,  he  in- 
vited four  young  people,  leaders  in  the  community 
but  not  professed  Christians,  to  come  to  his  home. 
One  of  these  now  living,  who  served  for  years  in 
the  ministry,  has  told  me  what  happened.  The 
pastor  was  greatly  burdened  for  these  young 
people.  When  seated  at  the  dinner  table,  with 
every  evidence  of  deep  concern  and  with  actual 
emotion,  he  told  them  of  his  heart  longing  for 
them.  It  was  a  revelation  to  these  young  people 
to  see  the  deep  concern  of  their  pastor  and  it  re- 
sulted in  the  four  giving  themselves  to  Christ 
upon  the  spot,  and  one  of  the  two  young  men  took 
a  college  course  and  entered  the  ministry.  But  the 
matter  did  not  end  there.    That  proved  to  be  the 


16  PASTOR  AND  EVANGELIST 

first  experience  opening  the  way  for  a  marvelous 
ministry. 

The  pastor  saw  that  the  secret  of  success  was 
to  be  found  in  the  personal  touch  and  he  was  so 
enamored  of  the  work  that  his  heart  flamed  up 
with  a  zeal  which  was  never  quenched  until  the 
day  of  his  death.  As  an  illustration  of  his  method, 
he  said,  I  had  a  row  of  bottles  that  I  wanted  to 
fill  from  my  hose.  First  I  fired  into  the  air,  hop- 
ing that  some  water  would  fall  into  the  bottles, 
but  I  found  that  every  variation  of  the  wind  car- 
ried the  spray  away  so  that  only  a  few  drops 
entered,  and  I  despaired  of  filling  the  bottles,  but 
when  I  turned  the  spray  directly  upon  the  bottles 
one  after  another,  they  were  soon  filled.  Sitting 
one  day  at  the  window  of  his  study,  he  looked 
across  the  street  to  the  beautiful  home  of  one  of 
the  prominent  citizens  who  was  at  that  time  Mayor 
of  the  city.  He  was  an  irregular  attendant  upon 
the  services  of  the  Church,  but  otherwise  had 
manifested  no  interest  in  religious  matters.  As 
the  pastor  sat  there  wondering  if  there  was  not 
something  he  could  do  to  reach  this  man,  he  saw  a 
servant  come  out  and  turn  the  faucet  by  the  foun- 
tain in  front  of  the  house.  He  watched  the  spray 
as  it  rose  with  copious  stream  and  reflected  on  the 
fact  that  it  was  connected  with  the  mountain  res- 
ervoir and  that  the  supply  of  water  was  inex- 
haustible. As  he  sat  still  meditating  darkness 
began  to  fall  and  he  saw  the  lamp-lighter  passing 


THE  PASTOR-EVANGELIST  17 

along  to  light  the  city  lamps.  He  reflected  that 
they  were  connected  with  the  great  gas  supply 
and  that  as  long  as  that  continued  the  light  would 
not  fail. 

These  little  instances  enforced  upon  his  thought 
the  fact  that  if  these  things  which  seemed  so  small 
could  receive  a  never-failing  supply  because  of 
their  connection,  he  too  by  being  united  with  God 
might  expect  to  have  power  and  strength,  not 
according  to  his  own  natural  limits  but  according 
to  the  fullness  of  God.  He  resolved  immediately 
that  he  would  go  across  the  street  and  talk  with 
the  Mayor  and  his  wife  about  their  souls'  inter- 
ests. The  Mayor  gave  him  a  very  kindly  recep- 
tion, and  when  he  had  unbosomed  himself,  told 
him  that  he  was  very  glad  to  have  a  chance  to 
talk  with  him  about  what  he  felt  should  be  the 
greatest  concern  in  his  life.  Before  the  evening 
was  over,  the  Mayor  and  his  wife  had  made  the 
great  decision  and  in  a  few  days  they  were  both 
received  into  the  Church. 

That  was  the  beginning  of  an  ingathering  of  150 
into  the  Church  during  the  next  two  years.  Sev- 
enty persons  came  in  at  one  service,  many  among 
the  most  prominent  in  the  town,  including  a  Con- 
gressman. The  young  people  were  greatly  moved 
and  organized  themselves  for  personal  work. 
This  marked  an  entire  change  in  Dr.  Goodell's 
ministry,  a  change  which  made  him  to  the  day 
of  his  death  possibly  the  most  efficient  pastor 


18  PASTOR  AND  EVANGELIST 

which  the  Congregational  Church  has  ever  known. 
Professor  Currie  has  a  thrilling  book  on  his  life's 
story  and  many  of  the  theological  schools  are 
using  him  to-day  as  one  of  the  greatest  examples 
of  pastoral  efficiency. 

There  will  always  be  a  place  for  the  vocational 
evangelist,  but  in  the  last  analysis  of  his  work, 
he  must  depend  upon  the  evangelistic  spirit  in 
the  hearts  of  the  pastors  to  whom  the  training  of 
these  converts  is  conomitted.  Much  good  was 
accomplished  by  those  prophets  whom  God  sent 
out  with  the  great  evangel,  Finney  and  Moody 
and  their  ilk,  and  there  are  still  with  us  men  of 
the  same  fine  spirit  to  whom  the  Church  is 
greatly  indebted  and  who  ought  to  be  encouraged 
in  their  work.  The  need  is  too  great  and  the 
forces  which  are  at  work  for  righteousness  are 
too  few  for  the  Church  to  minimize  or  set  aside 
any  of  them.  The  results  which  have  followed  the 
work  of  evangelists  are  full  of  challenge.  It  was 
the  message  of  Finney  which  led  to  the  conversion 
of  George  Williams  and  so  to  the  founding  of 
the  Young  Men's  Christian  Association.  It  was 
the  message  of  Moody  which  led  Drummond  and 
Grenfeld  to  give  themselves  to  a  service  which 
changed  university  thought  in  England  and  lifted 
Labrador  to  light  and  life. 

Still  it  is  true,  for  the  most  part,  that  the  in- 
gatherings into  the  Church,  which  keep  the  Church 
of  God  at  the  front,  are  not  those  which  come  in 


THE  PASTOE-EVANGELIST  19 

a  few  places  through  the  winning  of  thousands 
but  through  the  faithful  devotion  of  humble  pas- 
tors in  a  hundred  thousand  fields,  whose  record 
is  not  put  down  in  glowing  head  lines  in  the  daily 
press,  but  is  registered  in  the  deepened  soul  life 
of  thousands  of  people  and  is  recorded  only  in 
the  Lamb's  Book  of  Life.  We  hear  frequently 
that  there  are  not  many  real  additions  to  the 
churches  from  great  evangelistic  meetings.  The 
same  thing  with  few  exceptions  has  been  told 
through  all  the  years.  I  have  before  me  now  the 
Independent  of  March  31st,  1881.  On  the  first 
page  is  an  article  on  revivals  by  the  Rev.  Newman 
Hall  of  London.  In  it  he  says,  **The  mission  of 
our  brothers.  Moody  and  Sankey  was  followed  in 
some  places  by  large  admissions,  but  this  was  not 
the  case  in  London.  I  hailed  that  visit  and  took 
part  in  it,  assisted  in  the  inquiry  room  and  occa- 
sionally preached  in  connection  with  it.  Some 
of  the  services  were  held  in  our  Surrey  Chapel. 
Yet  out  of  a  membership  of  1,300  we  have  not 
three  who  are  the  fruit  of  that  mission.  It  did 
great  good  in  many  ways.  I  should  hail  another 
visit,  but  it  did  not  in  our  experience  show  that 
occasional  revivals  are  more  useful  as  regards 
conversion  than  the  steady  work  of  the  Church.'' 
The  call  of  the  hour  is  for  the  Pastor-Evangel- 
ist, a  man  of  the  flaming  heart,  who  will  be  all 
things  to  all  men  if  he  may  win  some  for  his  Lord, 
and  will  never  be  quite  content  until  his  personal 


20  PASTOR  AND  EVANGELIST 

friends  in  his  parish  are  also  personally  devoted 
to  the  Christ  whom  he  loves  and  seeks  to  serve. 
Little  children  will  rise  up  to  call  him  blessed  and 
the  dividends  which  come  to  him  in  later  life 
will  give  him  unbounded  cheer  as  the  years  come 
and  go. 


CHAPTER  II 

EVANGELISM   FOR  THE   TIMES 

I  heard  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson  give  his  last 
public  lecture.  The  subject  was  "Eloquence/* 
He  said  that  one  of  the  chief  elements  in  elo- 
quence was  timeliness.  I  am  sure  we  are  all 
agreed  that  this  element  is  always  a  factor,  even 
in  religion.  Since  so  much  is  being  said  about 
that  element  in  religion,  it  is  necessary  to  dis- 
criminate. If  "new  occasions  teach  new  duties" 
and  make  "ancient  good  uncouth,"  what  if  the 
old  things  we  have  treasured  in  religion  are  really 
evanescent  habits  and  customs  which  have  become 
obsolete!  Styles  of  manner  and  dress  are  rele- 
gated to  the  limbo  or  the  attic.  To  what  extent  will 
this  apply  in  matters  of  religion?  Must  the  soul 
be  as  anxious  to  be  up  to  the  minute  in  its  dress 
as  is  the  body?  Do  the  angels  also  change  fash- 
ion in  their  robes  and  will  the  Lamb's  Bride, 
"clad  in  linen  pure  and  white  which  is  the  right- 
eousness of  saints,"  be  also  troubled  lest  her 
garments  be  out  of  style?    Let  us  see  about  that. 

The  evangel  of  the  Son  of  God  has  long  been 
in  the  world.  The  good  news  is  both  old  news 
and  new  news.  What  part  of  it  has  been  out- 
grown, and  what  part  is  as  ageless  and  eternal  as 

21 


22  PASTOR  AND  EVANGELIST 

gravitation?  Because  a  thing  is  old  is  no  reason 
wliy  it  should  be  laid  aside.  The  sun  is  old,  but 
the  world  is  ceaselessly  renewed  by  it  and  if  it 
has  grown  less  in  its  life-giving  power,  we  are 
not  sensible  of  it.  The  sea  is  old  and  the  moun- 
tains, and  yet  they  are  always  new. 

"Helen's  lips  are  sifted  dust, 
niion  is  consumed  with  rust. 
All  the  galleons  of  Greece 
Drink  the  ocean's  dreamless  peace." 

But  love  is  always  new.  Time  cuts  no  furrows 
in  its  brow  and  floods  cannot  destroy  it.  It  is 
stronger  than  death.  We  are  quite  prepared  to 
believe  that  this  must  also  be  supremely  true  of 
the  love  of  God,  and  since  the  evangel  is  only 
the  proclamation  of  that  love  something  of  the 
evangel  must  remain  forever  unchanged. 

It  is  an  unspeakable  comfort  to  realize  that 
over  against  the  religion  that  is  only  *^ up-to-date" 
there  is  another  that  is  dateless,  like  its  author, 
''the  same  yesterday,  to-day  and  forever,"  one 
which  had  its  place  in  the  heart  of  God  before 
the  morning  stars  sang  together  and  will  be  cher- 
ished there  when  the  planets  are  borne  out  to 
their  sepulcher  along  the  dusty  road  where  once 
blazed  the  milky  way.  The  terrible  things  that 
destroy  the  soul  have  not  changed,  no  new  sin 
has  been  discovered  and,  alas,  no  old  ones  have 
gone  out  of  fashion.    Death  is  the  same  now  as 


EVANGELISM  FOR  THE  TIMES        23 

when  Cain  looked  into  the  face  of  his  murdered 
brother.  Sin  is  the  same  awful  thing  which  broke 
the  heart  of  Adam,  of  Edipus,  and  of  Esau,  and 
its  shame  is  no  other  than  that  which  Samson 
felt  when,  blind  and  in  prison,  he  ground  the  grists 
of  the  Philistines.  Are  we  not  also  comforted 
to  sing: 

"0  God,  our  help  in  ages  past, 
Our  hope  for  years  to  come, 
Our  shelter  from  the  stormy  blast. 
And  our  eternal  home." 

We  call  Him  the  God  of  our  fathers  and  we  love 
to  think  that  He  also  will  be  the  God  of  our  chil- 
dren and  insist  that  He  is  also  our  God. 

When  John  Robinson,  before  the  Mayflower 
sailed,  said  that  new  light  would  break  out  of  the 
Scriptures,  was  he  not  thinking  of  the  same  old 
light  which  had  been  in  the  Scriptures  from  the 
beginning  and  which  lighted  every  man  that  came 
into  the  worlds  We  may  make  new  adaptations 
of  steam  and  electricity,  but  with  all  our  study 
we  have  added  no  new  quality  to  either.  If  reli- 
gion is  after  all  a  matter  of  style  and  the  robe 
of  righteousness  liable  any  day  to  go  out  of  fash- 
ion in  what  shall  I  dress  my  soul?  If  I  have  to 
wait  at  the  door  of  the  professor  who  is  most  up- 
to-date  to  find  what  gospel  I  can  preach,  or  what 
gospel  I  can  live,  how  sad  is  my  estate,  for  alas, 
styles  differ  as  much  in  theology  as  in  the  Bon 


24  PASTOR  AND  EVANGELIST 

Marche!  Who  can  tell  me  what  will  fit  me  and 
who  is  final  authority  on  what  is  antiquated? 
May  I  still  long  to  have  my  name  written  in  that 
book  whose  pages  turn  not  yellow  with  the  passing 
years,  the  golden  book  wherein  are  written  in  all 
ages  the  names  of  those  who  have  feared  God  and 
kept  their  trysts  with  Him? 

While  it  is  true  that  there  may  be  a  general 
Zeitgeist  or  spirit  of  the  age,  it  is  also  true  that 
we  have  to  face  different  mental  attitudes  on  the 
part  of  men.  There  are  some  who  are  still  in  the 
dark  ages,  and  some  are  entering  the  Eenaissance. 
Dr.  Gilkey  has  called  attention  to  the  fact  that 
some  among  us  still  personify  the  attitude  of  the 
days  of  alchemy  and  the  black  arts  and  perpetuate 
the  superstitions  of  the  age  of  witchcraft  and 
the  attitude  of  the  scientific  opponents  of  Galileo. 
Whom  then  shall  we  take  as  the  representative 
of  the  age?  If  we  have  those  who  too  literally 
interpret  the  Bible,  we  have  also  those  who 
deny  it  and  put  up  arguments  which  were 
silenced  a  millennium  ago.  We  have  college 
men  who  turn  from  religion  as  a  thing  they 
in  their  wisdom  have  outgrown,  and  who  do 
not  seem  to  realize  that  in  that  they  are  at 
least  a  century  and  a  quarter  behind  the  times. 
To  find  those  who  believed  as  they  do,  all  that 
is  necessary  is  to  go  back  to  the  Yale  of  1790, 
when  the  entire  student  body,  with  two  or  three 
notable  exceptions,  scouted  religion  as  effete  and 


EVANGELISM  FOR  THE  TIMES        25 

unworthy  of  the  thought  of  trained  men,  and 
named  themselves  after  the  French  deists  of  their 
time ;  but  President  Dwight  of  Yale  so  completely 
answered  them  as  to  strike  them  dumb.  If  those 
who  share  their  feelings  now  would  only  study 
history  a  little,  they  would  be  spared  much  future 
mortification. 

It  is  well  for  flippant  criticism  to  listen  at  the 
study  door  of  Prof.  Borden  P.  Bowne.  He  says, 
''We  are  promised  now  and  then  a  new  religion. 
We  have  had  several  of  these  in  the  last  genera- 
tion. Compte  gave  us  the  'religion  of  humanity,' 
a  thing  about  which  it  is  impossible  to  speak  with 
gravity.  Mr.  Spencer  gave  us  the  'Religion  of 
the  Unknowable'  which  had  no  altars  and  where 
the  worship  was  mainly  of  the  silent  sort — no  in- 
spiration, no  rebuke,  no  stimulus  to  right  living. 
We  have  come  to  see  that  if  we  will  not  listen 
to  Jesus  Christ  in  His  revelation  of  the  Father, 
it  is  not  worth  while  to  listen  to  anybody  else. 
We  do  not  need  higher  criticism  every  day,  but 
we  need  the  living  faith  in  God  all  the  time  and 
I  think  that  students  need  to  bear  that  in  mind." 

With  these  thoughts  in  mind,  let  us  analyze  a 
little  the  question  of  what  kind  of  evangelism  will 
be  really  up-to-date  and  applicable  to  present  day 
needs.  That  will  send  us  back  to  Pentecost.  That 
was  where  the  Church  received  its  first  prepara- 
tion for  a  world  revival  which  will  not  be  ended 
until  the  last  rebel  breaks  his  sword  at  the  feet  of 


26  PASTOR  AND  EVANGELIST 

his  Lord.  Somethmg  happened  then  the  like  of 
which  had  never  happened  before.  They  were  all 
with  one  accord  in  one  place.  The  something  which 
happened  was  born  of  prayer  and  of  perfect  sur- 
render; that  something  was  so  mighty  that  it 
changed  a  poltroon  and  a  liar  and  a  blasphemer 
and  made  him  a  very  lion  in  courage  and  touched 
his  lips  with,  such  power  as  to  cleanse  them  of 
their  falsehood  and  their  blasphemy  and  make 
them  so  mighty  as  the  vehicle  of  truth,  that  thou- 
sands were  turned  to  God  by  the  preaching  of  a 
single  sermon. 

Let  us  hope  that  so  great  a  power  as  that,  so 
wonderfully  displayed,  was  not  to  be  confined  to 
that  age,  but  that  if  the  same  conditions  are  met 
to-day,  the  same  victory,  the  same  unspeakable 
miracle,  will  take  place.  The  false  will  become 
true,  polluted  lips  will  speak  the  truth,  and  those 
who  took  God's  name  in  vain  will  now  take  it  to 
such  purpose  that  brazen-hearted  sin  will  flee  and 
stout  iniquity  will  quail  before  it.  In  some  way 
or  other  we  must  have  that  old-time  power.  Of 
such  a  sword  as  that,  we  must  say  as  David  said 
concerning  the  sword  which  he  had  once  wrested 
from  the  hand  of  Goliath,  *  *  There  is  none  like  it ; 
give  it  to  me." 

"We  must  go  a  step  farther  and  say  that  the 
purpose  which  is  to  be  accomplished  by  the  evangel 
is  not  an  evanescent  purpose;  it  lays  hold  of  the 
springs  of  life.    Jesus  never  made  much  of  tradi- 


EVANGELISM  FOR  THE  TIMES        27 

tions.  He  scattered  them  as  no  man  ever  did  be- 
fore or  since.  To  the  cry,  **It  was  said  by  men  of 
old,"  He  answered,  '* Verily,  verily,  I  say  unto 
you."  He  had  no  sympathy  with  ecclesiastical 
millinery.  Religion  was  not  a  garment  to  be  put 
on;  it  was  a  life  to  be  lived.  So  He  said,  ^^I  am 
come  that  ye  might  have  life  and  that  ye  might 
have  it  more  abundantly."  It  is  quite  evident 
then  that  so  far  as  the  evangelism  of  the  present 
day  seems  to  make  itself  a  thing  not  of  form  but 
of  life,  the  methods  of  the  Master  are  in  no  ways 
antiquated  or  outgrown.  ^*Ye  must  be  born 
again,"  is  a  statement  that  fits  the  twentieth  cen- 
tury as  admirably  as  it  did  the  first  century. 

Some  persons  have  been  inclined  to  think  that 
this  command  has  been  abrogated.  They  have 
tried  the  application  of  externals.  They  have 
treated,  not  the  root  of  the  disease,  but  its  out- 
breaking form.  They  have  tried  palliatives,  not 
to  say  sedatives  and  bromides,  but  in  some  places, 
at  least,  in  the  awful  arbitrament  of  the  pragmatic 
test,  these  nostrums  have  gone  into  the  discard 
and  men  are  swinging  back  to  the  first  century  to 
take  up  once  more  that  great  eternal  proclama- 
tion which  the  Lord  of  life  has  never  abrogated. 
Men  have  come  to  find  out  that  man  by  wisdom 
knows  not  God,  but  the  things  which  have  been 
concealed  from  the  wise  are  revealed  unto  the 
simple-hearted,  and  that  now,  as  of  old,  the  truth 
is  announced,  *^  Except  ye  repent  and  become  as 


28  PASTOR  AND  EVANGELIST 

little  children  ye  shall  in  no  wise  enter  the  king- 
dom of  God.'' 
To  the  old  cry,  the  cry  of  Shakespeare, 

"Canst  thou  not  minister  to  a  mind  diseased, 
Pluck  from  the  memory  a  rooted  sorrow, 
Raze  out  the  written  troubles  of  the  brain, 
And  with  some  sweet  oblivious  antidote 
Cleanse  the  stuff'd  bosom  of  that  perilous  stuff 
Which  weights  upon  the  heart?" 

the  old  answer,  Shakespeare's  answer,  comes  back 
from  lodge  and  club  with  infinite  reiteration : 

"Therein  the  patient 
Must  minister  to  himself." 

But  the  answer  of  the  first  century  was  the 
answer  of  the  cross  and  of  Him  who  hung  upon  it : 
**Come  unto  me,  all  ye  that  labor  and  are  heavy 
laden  and  I  will  give  you  rest."  **And  I,  if  I 
be  lifted  up,  will  draw  all  men  unto  me."  And 
as  a  prophylactic  against  despair  the  church  con- 
tinues to  sing : 

"There  is  a  fountain  filled  with  blood 
Drawn  from  ImmanuePs  veins; 
And  sinners  plunged  beneath  that  flood 
Lose  all  their  guilty  stains." 

Here  I  am  quite  aware  there  is  ground  for  dis- 
pute. There  are  some  who  are  saying,  ^'You  make 
this  a  sanguinary  religion."    To  that  we  plead 


EVANGELISM  FOR  THE  TIMES        29 

guilty.  We  even  make  bold  to  say  that  without 
the  shedding  of  blood  there  is  no  remission  of  sins. 
We  affirm  there  is  no  other  name  given  under 
heaven  whereby  we  must  be  saved  but  the  name  of 
Jesus,  whose  name  was  given  to  Him  because  He 
should  be  the  Saviour  of  the  world,  not  by  His 
life  only,  but  by  His  death. 

There  is  a  mistaken  notion  that  there  is  a  social 
gospel  which  is  not  at  all  dependent  on  a  spiritual 
basis  and  is  to  take  the  place  of  the  old-time  evan- 
gel. Those  who  affirm  this  do  not  read  aright  the 
signs  of  the  times,  and  are  not  sufficiently  in- 
formed as  to  the  arbitrament  of  fact.  As  if  any 
social  gospel  would  be  of  real  use  which  did 
not  have  a  throbbing  spiritual  power  behind  it! 
And,  on  the  other  hand,  we  must  not  lose  sight 
of  the  fact  that  no  life  of  the  spirit  can  be  long 
maintained  that  does  not  express  itself  in  terms 
of  daily  life  and  helpfulness.  We  are  members 
one  of  another ;  life  takes  on  importance  from  our 
surroundings  and  responsibilities.  We  are  sons 
or  daughters,  brothers  or  sisters,  neighbors  and 
friends,  and  every  one  of  these  relationships  con- 
fers obligations.  None  of  these  can  be  truly  met 
unless  the  incentive  is  higher  than  a  mere  matter 
of  propinquity  or  human  relationship.  We  do  not 
come  to  love  God  through  love  of  men,  but  we  love 
and  serve  our  fellows  because  we  love  Him  who 
came  into  the  world  not  to  be  ministered  unto  but 
to  minister. 


30  PASTOR  AND  EVANGELIST 

There  is  also  a  mistaken  notion  that  the  climax 
of  Jesus'  teaching  was  the  sermon  on  the  mount. 
The  world  has  paid  its  tribute  to  that  wonderful 
message,  though  His  detractors  are  accustomed 
to  say  that  there  was  nothing  in  that  message 
which  was  new.  Jewish  critics  have  said  that  it 
was  in  substance  to  be  found  in  the  Talmud  and 
other  sacred  writings.  Oriental  critics  have  said 
that  Confucius  taught  the  same  truths.  The 
answer  to  all  this  is  that  whoever  may  have  said 
the  same  things,  no  one  had  ever  lived  them  before 
Jesus  came.  He  was  the  first  to  exemplify  them 
in  His  own  life.  But  the  golden  rule  was  only 
preliminary  to  something  that  has  greater  power 
and  outreach. 

Then,  too,  we  are  asked  why  we  do  not  have  the 
same  physical  healing  as  in  His  time.  Jesus' 
answer  is  enough.  He  never  set  great  store  by 
physical  healing  anyway.  He  used  it  to  empha- 
size His  wonder-working  power.  He  told  them 
that  it  was  immaterial  to  Him  in  what  direction 
that  power  was  turned,  **  Whether  is  easier  to  say, 
Thy  sins  which  are  many  are  forgiven  thee,  or  rise 
up  and  walk? ' '  If  He  had  been  inclined  to  declare 
His  mission  by  His  physical  power.  He  would 
have  made  that  as  all-inclusive  as  His  spiritual 
power  but  there  were  thousands  of  sick  within  His 
reach  whom  He  did  not  heal.  To  His  disciples. 
He  said,  ^^ Greater  things  than  these  shall  ye  do," 
and  that  promise  is  being  fulfilled.    It  was  blessed 


EVANGELISM  FOR  THE  TIMES        31 

to  Ileal  the  blind  and  the  lame  and  the  leper,  but 
to  open  the  spiritual  eyes  of  men  born  blind  is  a 
greater  miracle ;  to  heal  a  leprous  body  is  not  half 
the  marvel  that  is  wrought  in  the  cleansing  of  the 
leprous  soul. 

The  golden  rule  would  do  for  His  inaugural 
but  the  message  which  grew  with  the  unfolding 
of  His  life  was  of  quite  another  kind  in  its  power. 
It  was  the  message  of  the  cross.  His  whole  life 
was  condensed  into  this  great  thought — He  had  a 
passion  for  saving  the  lost.  He  had  come  to  bring 
life  and  immortality  to  light  through  the  gospel. 
His  was  a  message  of  conquest  over  the  dread 
thing  that  peoples  men's  lives  with  ghosts  con- 
stantly shrieking  in  their  ears,  *^Thou  didst  it! 
Thou  didst  it!'' — that  terrible  thing  that  digs 
graves  and  breaks  hearts  and  ruins  love  and  honor 
and  undermines  the  proudest  fabric  which  the 
architect  called  Life  has  ever  built.  With  far- 
reaching  emphasis  the  record  declares,  *^When  the 
time  that  He  should  be  received  up  was  fully 
come  He  steadfastly  set  His  face  to  go  to  Jeru- 
salem." The  shadow  of  His  cross  lay  athwart 
His  path,  and  it  deepened  with  every  passing  day. 

Now  a  man  is  likely  to  weigh  his  words  when 
words  can  be  but  few.  It  is  the  last  time  that  He 
will  speak  to  His  friends  before  He  goes  to  the 
garden  and  the  flagellation  and  the  cross.  Now, 
if  ever.  He  will  put  first  things  first.  Because 
they  are  slow  to  understand  and  believe,  much 


32  PASTOR  AND  EVANGELIST 

that  He  wanted  to  say  to  them  He  could  not  say. 
**Ye  were  not  able  to  bear  it;  neither  now  are  ye 
able,"  are  His  own  words.  Nevertheless  He  will 
tell  them,  in  words  which  they  will  understand 
better,  as  they  look  back  upon  them,  the  great 
secret  of  His  mission.  There  is  no  attempt  to  re- 
hearse the  sermon  on  the  mount.  Listen  at  the 
door  of  the  upper  room.  No  one  can  halt  at  the 
prison  door  in  far  off  Athens  in  an  earlier  age 
without  being  moved  by  the  words  of  him  who 
holds  the  poison  cup  in  his  hand  and  of  whom  his 
jailer  said,  ^^He  was  the  gentlest  and  the  best 
that  ever  came  here."  It  was  high  discourse 
which  the  son  of  Sophroniscus  voiced  that  day, 
but  throbbing  as  his  message  was  with  love  and 
immortality,  Socrates  himself  could  not  approach 
the  surpassing  love  and  yearning  and  certainty 
voiced  by  Him  who  was  the  Son  of  Mary  and  the 
Son  of  God. 

The  note  He  raised  is  higher  than^anv  other 
that  ever  fell  from  human  lips;  He  omy  speaks 
with  certainty.  He  left  a  throne  for  a  manger 
that  He  might  fill  the  mansions  of  heaven  with  citi- 
zens redeemed.  The  three  short  years  of  His 
prophetic  life  are  condensed  into  this  volcanic 
point  and  His  message  in  the  upper  room  has 
done  more  to  fill  the  human  heart  with  peace  and 
hope  than  all  the  disquisitions  of  all  the  philoso- 
phers of  all  the  ages.  He  is  bidding  His  chosen 
friends  good-by ;  here  are  the  supreme  values  that 


EVANGELISM  FOR  THE  TIMES        33 

time  and  death  do  not  change.  Why  should  we 
seek  to  set  up  lasting  standards  who  know  nothing 
about  eternities?  The  only  One  who  knows  told 
them  and  us  what  are  the  supreme  values  in  life 
and  to  what  they  and  we  should  address  ourselves. 
Here  we  find  what  He  wishes  us  to  do.  Here  we 
find  what  is  true  enough  and  good  enough  and 
eternal  enough  to  make  us  thrill  with  the  call. 
It  is  the  climax  of  all  His  messages  to  men,  and 
we  shall  do  well  if  we  hush  every  lesser  voice 
and  listen  to  Him,  minded  to  do  His  will. 

There  are  some  very  practical  things  that  have 
come  to  us  in  the  aftermath  of  the  war.  They 
were  apostles  of  a  new  set  of  things  who  said, 
'  *  The  old  order  giveth  place  to  new. ' '  Galsworthy 
had  said,  **When  the  war  is  over  mystical  Chris- 
tianity will  be  dead.  It  was  dying  before  the 
war  began.  It  will  utterly  pass  away  when  the 
war  is  over."  But  the  men  who  were  looking  for 
a  corpse  were  disappointed.  Vital  religion  has 
had  always  a  strange  capacity  for  coming  back, 
and  when  there  were  added  a  few  hundred  thou- 
sand wooden  crosses  in  Picardy  and  a  million  wid- 
ows in  France  and  England  and  America,  mystical 
Christianity  received  a  new  life  and  from  every 
martyr's  grave  and  every  hearthstone  there  arose 
a  cry  deeper  than  the  heart  of  men  had  known 
before,  "O  come,  let  us  worship  and  bow  down; 
let  us  kneel  before  the  Lord,  our  Maker."  They 
told  us  that  when  the  boys  came  back  from  the 


34  PASTOR  AND  EVANGELIST 

trenches  we  should  have  to  change  the  work  of 
our  churches,  and  so  in  some  places  they  tried  to 
make  the  parish  houses  a  combination  of  a  dough- 
nut kitchen  and  a  dance  hall;  but  if  those  accom- 
plished the  thing  whereunto  they  set  themselves, 
we  have  not  heard  of  it.  That  was  the  worst 
year  the  Church  in  America  has  had  in  a  hundred 
years,  and  the  recollection  of  it  is  still  a  night- 
mare to  us. 

No,  the  kind  of  truth  the  world  must  have  to- 
day is  felt  truth,  the  truth  of  experience,  the  truth 
that  has  so  much  of  life  that  if  you  cut  it  it  would 
bleed.  Christianity  is  a  throbbing  life.  It  brings 
news  that  fits  the  hour,  for  the  soul  is  the  same 
in  all  ages.  Of  course,  we  do  not  want  stale  news. 
We  light  our  fires  with  yesterday's  newspapers. 
We  want  such  news  as  Jesus  gave  to  the  disheart- 
ened on  their  way  to  Emmaus.  We  want  sight, 
for  God  is  filling  all  the  air  with  light.  It  is 
sometimes  asked,  what  has  Jesus  to  offer  to  people 
who  observe  the  proprieties,  pay  their  debts,  are 
cultivated,  and  belong  to  good  society,  who  do 
not  gamble  very  much,  nor  drink  very  much  and 
are  not  in  slavery  to  their  passions?  The  answer 
is,  **I  am  come  that  they  might  have  life.''  In 
Jesus'  time  the  Pharisees  said  they  had  it,  and 
the  Pharisees  in  our  time  repeat  that  affirmation, 
but  He  made  short  shift  of  their  claims  when  He 
said,  ''He  that  hath  the  Son  hath  life,  and  he 
that  hath  not  the  Son  hath  not  life." 


EVANGELISM  FOR  THE  TIMES        35 

Tlie  age  is  not  an  age  of  theory-;  it  is  an  age  that 
exalts  practice  and  experience.  We  may  not 
understand  all  mystery  and  all  knowledge,  but 
we  must  have  had  an  experience  if  we  are  to  be 
of  service.  We  must  have  some  convictions  about 
God  and  duty,  about  sin  and  salvation.  The 
world  will  not  worship  and  serve  a  God  who  is 
simply  under  investigation. 

Since  the  evangel  for  to-day  is  one  of  personal 
experience,  it  can  only  be  wrought  out  by  personal 
work.  Men  do  not  want  to  read  theories.  They 
cry,  *^Sayest  thou  this  thing  of  thyself,  or  did 
another  tell  it  theeT'  What  do  you  know  about 
God?  It  is  a  time  when  our  pastors  must  throttle 
ease  in  the  study  and  go  out  into  the  streets  and 
into  the  homes,  with  a  zeal  that  flames  in  their 
cheeks  and  moistens  their  eyes,  to  solicit  men  to 
accept  the  salvation  of  Christ,  without  which  they 
are  undone.  It  is  a  time  when  laymen  must  cease 
to  call  religion  an  experience  for  ministers,  and 
must  go  out,  like  the  laymen  who  laid  the  founda- 
tions of  the  Church  in  the  first  century,  to  bring 
their  brothers  and  their  friends  to  Him  who  is 
the  Light  of  the  World.  Vocational  evangelists 
will  always  have  their  place,  but  they  themselves 
understand  that  the  ideal  condition  is  that  where 
each  pastor,  with  his  own  officials  and  member- 
ship about  him,  undertakes  to  be  what  Jesus  has 
called  him,  the  light  of  the  world  and  the  salt  of 
the  earth. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  JESUS    WE   FORGET 

Probably  the  poem  of  Richard  Watson  Gilder 
which  is  most  quoted  is  the  one  entitled  *^The 
Song  of  a  Heathen."  It  represents  the  attitude 
of  a  stranger  sojourning  in  Galilee  when  Jesus 
was  preaching  there,  who  had  heard  strange 
things  about  Him,  possibly  had  seen  Him  perform 
some  of  His  miracles.  He  sensed  the  atmosphere 
which  was  around  him  and  this  is  what  he  says 
of  Him: 

'^If  Jesus  Christ  is  a  man — 
And  only  a  man — I  say 
That  of  all  mankind,  I  cleave  to  him 
And  to  Him  will  I  cleave  alway. 

If  Jesus  Christ  is  a  God — 

And  the  only  God — I  swear 

I  will  follow  Him  through  Heaven  and  hell, 

The  earth,  the  sea  and  the  air." 

This  is  what  we  need  to  remember  about  Jesus. 
One  of  our  great  thinkers  affirms:  *^The  Bible 
really  has  very  little  to  say  as  to  what  Jesus 
taught,  but  an  immense  amount  to  say  and  to 
imply  as  to  what  He  was.'^  It  is  His  personality 
which  counts.    It  is  the  glorious  fact  that  He  was 

36 


THE  JESUS  WE  FORGET  37 

God  manifest  in  the  flesli.  We  are  to  follow  Him 
and  to  cleave  to  Him,  and  if  we  are  to  be  His 
followers  we  must  catch  His  spirit.  We  must  seek 
according  to  our  capacity  and  opportunity  to  do 
the  things  which  He  did. 

In  another  book,  Heralds  of  a  Passion,  I  have 
set  forth  as  best  I  could  the  yearning  of  His 
soul  after  men.  I  have  said  that  His  whole  life 
might  be  condensed  into  one  phrase — ^^He  had  a 
passion  for  saving  the  lost."  I  still  affirm  that 
no  man  has  any  right  to  call  himself  a  follower 
of  Jesus  who  does  not  share  that  passion.  It  is 
not  enough  to  know  academic  truth.  The  worst 
man  you  ever  met  knows  more  truth  than  the 
best  man  you  know  ever  practiced,  and  it  is  the 
living  truth  that  Jesus  affirms  is  the  only  proper 
test  of  it.  So  the  Jesus  we  need  to  remember  is 
the  Jesus  of  life  and  not  of  some  doctrine.  When 
He  was  here,  and  knowing  how  weak  and  wicked 
men  were,  He  yet  entrusted  Himself  and  His  mes- 
sage to  the  memory  of  those  who  loved  Him 
through  death,  and  in  His  own  teachings  He  paid 
no  attention  whatever  to  critical  matters,  even 
when  He  quoted  the  Old  Testament.  He  quoted 
without  explanation  incidents  and  miracles  which 
the  higher  critics  rule  out.  He  quoted  the  story 
of  Jonah  without  any  glosses  as  to  whether  he  was 
a  real  or  a  fictitious  character.  He  quoted  the  mir- 
acles of  the  Old  Testament  without  any  fear  that 
He  should  lose  His  reputation  for  scholarship.  No 


38  PASTOR  AND  EVANGELIST 

man  can  meditate  on  this  without  realizing  that 
there  was  something  vastly  bigger  than  such  ques- 
tions in  His  mind. 

St.  Paul  tells  us  that  the  great  mystery  of  the 
Gospel  was  **God  manifest  in  the  flesh,''  and 
Matthew  does  not  hesitate  to  point  out  all  the 
blemishes  on  the  human  side  of  His  family  tree. 
So  He  became  a  man  among  men.  He  bore  the 
sweat  and  travail  of  life.  Workmen  loved  Him 
because  they  saw  the  marks  of  their  nails  in  His 
hands  both  living  and  dead.  *'The  plagues  of 
Egypt,"  as  some  one  has  said,  **are  as  a  rule  the 
plagues  of  plenty, ' '  and  in  that  one  discovers  why 
Jesus  as  He  went  among  the  people  was  constantly 
telling  them  that  they  must  keep  their  soul  alive 
whatever  happened  to  the  body.  So  far  as  the 
record  is  concerned,  Jesus  only  wrote  once,  and 
then  He  wrote  on  the  ground,  but  His  writing  must 
have  been  so  plain  that  the  Jews  who  watched 
His  finger  saw  their  own  condemnation  and  left 
one  by  one  in  shame. 

His  last  will  and  testament — listen  as  it  falls 
from  His  lips !  With  His  disciples  standing  about 
Him — *^My  peace  I  give  unto  you,  not  as  the  world 
giveth,  give  I  unto  you."  My  peace  is  my  legacy. 
That  is  my  last  bequest,"  and  with  that  He  went 
home. 

Recently  after  addressing  Randolph-Macon  Col- 
lege at  Ashland,  Virginia,  the  President,  Dr. 
Blackwell,   took  me  to   the   old  Hanover   Court 


THE  JESUS  WE  FORGET  39 

House.  That  Court  House  was  built  before 
Washington  was  born,  of  bricks  which  were 
brought  from  England.  It  is  the  building  in  which 
Patrick  Henry  made  his  celebrated  speech  in  the 
Parson's  cause.  Not  far  from  there  Henry  Clay 
was  born.  My  friend  obtained  permission  from 
the  clerk  to  show  me  a  strange  will  which  was 
made  in  1866.  You  can  see  how  far  human  hate 
can  go.    This  is  the  will: 

**I  have  made  several  wills  before,  when  I  had 
considerable  property  to  give  my  wife  and  chil- 
dren, but  since  the  Yankees  have  stolen  all  my 
negroes  and  robbed  me  of  a  great  deal  of  my 
other  personal  property,  pillaging  my  house, 
breaking  open  all  the  doors,  and  stealing  all  the 
clothing  they  wanted,  I  have  very  little  left  to 
will.  They  stole  a  gold  watch  from  me  worth 
about  three  hundred  dollars,  which  was  a  bridal 
present  from  me  to  my  wife,  when  we  were  mar- 
ried half  a  century  ago.  They  threatened  to  shoot 
me  if  I  did  not  deliver  the  watch  to  them,  and 
burn  down  my  dwelling  house,  presenting  their 
pistols  at  me  frequently,  and  I,  an  old  man  of  sev- 
enty-six that  was  too  old  and  feeble  to  defend 
myself. 

*'I  now  therefore  make  this  my  last  will  and 
testament,  in  the  manner  and  form  following ;  viz : 

*  *  First,  I  give  and  bequeath  to  my  children  and 
grandchildren,  and  their  descendants  throughout 
all  generations,  the  bitter  hatred  and  everlasting 
malignity  of  my  heart  and  soul  against  the  Yan- 
kees, including  all  the  people  north  of  Mason's 
and  Dixon's  line:  and  I  do  hereby  exhort  and  en- 


40  PASTOR  AND  EVANGELIST 

treat  my  children  and  grandchildren,  if  they  have 
any  love  or  veneration  for  me,  to  instill  in  the 
hearts  of  their  children  and  grandchildren,  and 
all  their  future  descendants,  from  their  childhood, 
this  bitter  hatred  and  those  malignant  feelings, 
against  the  aforesaid  people  and  their  descendants 
throughout  all  future  time  and  generations." 

What  an  infinite  distance  between  the  legacy 
of  peace  and  the  legacy  of  hate !  But  hate  cannot 
last.  It  is  against  the  laws  of  God.  It  has  in 
its  bosom  the  seed  of  its  own  undoing. 

With  a  smile  President  Blackwell  said,  '^  After 
the  war  this  man  died,  his  sons  moved  west  and 
married  Yankee  girls."  My  friend  himself  was 
an  eye  witness  of  the  horror  of  the  war,  and  his 
own  family  has  suffered  unspeakable  losses.  For 
myself,  only  a  few  miles  away  at  Cold  Harbor,  my 
own  brother  had  been  shot.  But  through  Christ's 
legacy  of  peace  my  friend  and  I  were  one  in  heart 
under  the  stars  and  stripes.  A  few  days  later  I 
passed,  with  the  sons  of  those  who  had  faced  my 
brother  in  battle,  over  the  grass-grown  trenches 
of  Cold  Harbor,  and  in  a  cornfield  I  picked  up  a 
Southern  rifle  ball  shot  there  fifty-eight  years  ago. 
There  was  no  bitterness  in  our  hearts  and  for 
Jesus'  sake  we  were  brothers  beloved.  Let  us 
bury  all  our  hatred  and  take  our  part  of  His  leg- 
acy— **My  peace  I  give  unto  you." 

We  must  not  fail  to  remember  that  Jesus  was 
the   superlative  individualist   of  the   ages.     We 


THE  JESUS  WE  FORGET  41 

would  like  to  do  things  by  wholesale  in  manufac- 
ture and  in  efforts  of  every  kind.  We  used  to  talk 
in  units,  but  now  we  talk  in  hundreds  and  thous- 
ands. We  have  gone  on  with  leaps  and  bounds. 
We  have  not  failed  in  our  organizations,  our  sys- 
tems are  admirable ;  but  where  we  have  failed  is  in 
our  contact,  and  really  the  actual  contact  is  the 
only  thing  that  counts.  You  find  that  in  your  tele- 
phone, or  your  telegraph  or  your  wireless.  Now 
the  actual  contact  of  individual  heart  with  individ- 
ual heart  is  the  place  where  life  begins.  We  have 
only  to  recall  the  method  of  Jesus.  It  was  Nico- 
demus  and  the  woman  at  the  well  and  Zacchaeus 
and  Andrew  and  Peter.  It  was  the  message  to, 
and  the  contact  with,  the  individual  heart  which 
laid  the  foundations  of  the  Church.  To  spend 
an  afternoon  picking  up  Andrew  or  Philip  or 
Peter,  when  one  might  have  written  an  article  on 
a  new  park,  or  a  fresh  article  on  psychology  or 
pedagogy  or  theology ;  or  to  waste  a  whole  evening 
with  Nicodemus  when  one  might  have  lectured  for 
a  hundred  dollars  or  more  on  the  beauties  of  the 
Yosemite  or  the  devastation  of  France,  would 
seem  to  be  a  waste  of  energy,  but  measured  by  His 
standard  who  sat  at  the  wall  of  Samaria,  dis- 
coursing to  an  audience  of  one  on  the  water  of  life, 
such  an  audience  and  such  a  subject  are  thrilling 
beyond  words. 

Personal  power  can  only  be  transmitted  by  per- 
sonal contact,  and  so  it  was  that  Jesus  came  to 


42  PASTOR  AND  EVANGELIST 

reveal  God  to  men  and  He  Himself  picked  His  dis- 
ciples one  by  one  and  sent  them  out  with  His 
blessed  evangel.  He  wrote  no  book,  He  outlined 
no  ritual,  He  Himself  organized  no  Church.  He 
staked  the  future  of  His  cause  on  the  going  out 
of  twelve  men,  whose  only  preparation  was  that 
they  had  been  with  Him  until  they  had  caught 
His  spirit  and  after  the  touch  of  Pentecost  they 
were  able  to  reproduce  the  quality  of  His  life  in 
the  service  which  they  should  render  one  by  one 
for  their  people.  This  is  how  our  own  hearts 
catch  the  fire  and  this  is  how  it  is  distributed 
throughout  the  world.  One  torch  lights  another, 
nor  grows  less  in  the  lighting  and  behold  how  great 
a  matter  a  single  torch  may  kindle! 

Above  all,  let  us  never  forget  that  He  is  not 
the  son  of  Mary  with  influence,  but  the  Son  of 
God  with  power.  Mr.  H.  G.  Wells  has  much  to 
say  about  His  human  personality.  He  reminds  us 
that  the  old  Roman  historians  ignored  Jesus  en- 
tirely. He  says,  ** Jesus  left  no  impress  on  the 
historical  records  of  His  time.  Yet,  more  than 
nineteen  hundred  years  later,  a  historian  like 
myself  .  .  .  finds  the  picture  centering  irresistibly 
around  the  life  and  character  of  this  simple  lov- 
able man.  .  .  .  The  world  began  to  be  a  different 
world  from  the  day  His  doctrine  was  preached, 
and  every  step  toward  wider  understanding  and 
tolerance  and  good  will  is  a  step  in  the  direction 
of  universal  brotherhood,  which  He  proclaimed.'' 


THE  JESUS  WE  FORGET  43 

So  this  Mstorian,  disregarding  the  theological 
significance  of  His  life,  writes  the  name  of  Jesus 
of  Nazareth  at  the  top  of  the  list  of  the  world's 
greatest  characters.  For  the  historian's  test  of 
greatness  is  not,  ^^What  did  he  accumnlate  for 
himself?"  or,  *^What  did  he  build  up  to  tumble 
down  at  his  death!"  Not  that  at  all,  but  this, 
*^Was  the  world  different  because  he  lived  I"  To 
this  I  cannot  do  better  than  to  add  those  thrilling 
words  of  John  Oxenham : 

^TsFot  What,  but  Whom,  I  do  believe; 
That,  in  my  darkest  hour  of  need, 
Hath  comfort  that  no  mortal  creed 
To  mortal  man  may  give. 

"Not  What  but  Whom. 
For  Christ  is  more  than  all  the  creeds, 
And  His  full  life  of  gentle  deeds 
Shall  all  the  creeds  outlive. 

"Not  What  I  do  believe,  but  Whom. 
Who  walks  beside  me  in  the  gloom? 
Who  shares  the  burden  wearisome? 
Who  all  the  dim  way  doth  illume, 
And  bids  me  look  beyond  the  tomb 
The  larger  life  to  live? 

"Not  what  I  do  believe 
But  Whom! 
Not  What, 
But  Whomr 

This  is  the  thing  which  we  must  treasure  above 
all  else.    It  has  become  quite  the  fashion  in  criti- 


44  PASTOR  AND  EVANGELIST 

cal  circles  to  disparage  the  deity  of  Jesus  Christ 
and  with  it  His  resurrection  from  the  dead.  Crit- 
ics are  freely  saying  that  it  is  much  more  difficult 
now,  on  account  of  new  scientific  facts  and  critical 
results  generally,  to  believe  in  spiritual  things.  In 
answer  to  that  I  would  like  to  quote  the  words 
of  the  greatest  philosopher  of  the  present  genera- 
tion. Hear  what  Prof.  Borden  P.  Bowne,  of  Bos- 
ton University,  w^ho,  more  than  any  man  in  Amer- 
ica, has  represented  clear,  philosophical  thought 
in  the  last  generation, — hear  what  he  says.  *'It 
is  only  the  half  educated  who  fancy  that  science 
has  made  our  faith  more  difficult.  Some  persons 
who  have  dwelt  too  long  in  the  cave  of  dogmatic 
naturalism  and  who  are  somewhat  in  the  hearsay 
and  uncritical  stage  of  intellect,  have  been  told  that 
belief  is  unusually  difficult  to-day.  It  seems  to  be 
sufficient  to  tell  such  persons  in  reply  that  they 
have  been  misinformed.'' 

The  critics  are  saying  that  the  men  of  Christ's 
time  realized  and  affirmed  His  divinity.  It  was 
therefore  very  natural  for  them  to  believe  in  His 
physical  resurrection,  but  in  our  time  we  are  im- 
pressed not  with  His  divinity  but  with  His  hu- 
manity, and  therefore  the  scholars  of  to-day  find 
it  very  difficult  to  believe  in  His  resurrection. 

The  answer  of  Professor  Bowne  to  all  such 
would  seem  to  be  conclusive:  ** Something  must 
have  happened  to  change  the  band  of  fleeing  dis- 
ciples into  the  world-defiers  and  world-conquerors 


THE  JESUS  WE  FORGET  45 

which  they  soon  became.  If  there  was  no  fact  be- 
hind it  all,  whence  did  this  new  conviction  and 
mighty  courage  come  ?  If  nothing  had  resulted,  if 
there  had  been  only  a  momentary  flicker  of  enthu- 
siasm, we  might  well  believe  that  it  was  all  a  mis- 
take, but  when  the  Christian  Church  sprang  out 
of  it  and  still  endures  through  faith  in  it  we  cer- 
tainly need  not  be  ashamed  of  our  faith  in  the 
face  of  anything  that  science  or  historical  criti- 
cism may  say.  Some  will  call  it  Christian  super- 
stition; we  call  it  Christian  faith.  To  some  it  is 
still  a  stumbling  block  and  foolishness;  to  some 
it  is  the  faith  of  God  and  the  wisdom  of  God.  As 
between  these  views  decision  must  be  made  of  the 
survival  of  the  fittest,  and  the  court  has  been  in 
session  for  nearly  two  thousand  years.  All  the 
religious  views  that  for  one  reason  or  another 
have  failed  to  believe  in  Jesus  and  the  resurrec- 
tion have  likewise  been  with  us  for  many  centuries 
and  they  maintain  only  a  precarious  existence. 
These  have  not  been  great  enough  to  command 
the  faith  or  stir  the  hearts  of  men." 

The  destructive  critics,  and  any  others  who 
cannot  accept  the  physical  resurrection  of  Jesus, 
are  welcome  to  get  what  comfort  they  can  out  of 
these  facts.  Of  course,  there  will  always  be  differ- 
ence of  opinion  among  men  who  weigh  the  same 
evidence.  Witness  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
United  States  which  divides  on  many  of  the  great- 
est questions  of  law  and  fact  and  by  a  majority 


46  PASTOR  AND  EVANGELIST 

of  one  declares  their  enactment  to  be  the  law  of 
the  land.  We  have  no  desire  to  set  up  a  Procrus- 
tean bed  on  which  to  stretch  those  who  disagree 
with  us,  but  we  would  like  to  make  it  clear  that  in 
matters  of  this  kind  no  scholar  has  a  right  to 
fitssume  that  the  scholarship  of  the  age  will  not 
allow  us  to  affirm  that  the  supernatural  is  still  the 
backbone  of  Christianity.  So  far  as  science  is 
concerned,  there  have  been  quite  as  many  great 
scientists  who  have  believed  in  Christianity  as 
have  repudiated  it,  so  that  their  opposition  to 
Christianity  had  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  the 
science  or  the  philosophy  which  are  involved  in  the 
Christian  faith. 

There  are  some  who  feel  themselves  constrained, 
they  say,  by  inexorable  logic  and  the  appeal  to 
fact  to  deny  Bible  miracles  in  general  and  the  mir- 
acle of  the  Resurrection  of  Jesus  in  particular. 
This  would  be  amusing  if  it  were  not  for  its  effect 
upon  those  who  are  led  thereby  to  lose  faith  in 
the  great  spiritual  verities.  May  we  be  allowed 
to  say  to  all  such  that  logic  and  fact  have  nothing 
whatever  to  do  with  their  disbelief  in  the  mir- 
acles? The  disbelief  is  not  at  all  a  matter  to 
which  they  are  forced  by  laws  of  thought  or  argu- 
ment. I  am  led  to  say  this  because  men  of  far 
greater  intellectual  power  than  themselves  have 
unhesitatingly  affirmed  their  belief  in  these  very 
things.  I  suppose  there  is  no  theological  professor 
in  any  chair  of  Christian  evidence  in  America  who 


THE  JESUS  WE  FORGET  47 

would  not  be  modest  enough  to  admit  that  in  the 
matter  of  pure  philosophy  he  would  feel  that  he 
was  not  worthy  to  lose  the  latchet  of  the  intellec- 
tual sandals  of  Borden  P.  Bowne,  our  greatest 
philosopher,  to  whom  I  have  referred.  Hear  what 
he  says:  ! 

*^Let  us  then  as  we  go  about  our  task  recall  the 
triumphs  that  have  been  following  the  cross  from 
the  days  of  His  crucifixion  until  now.  Let  us 
strive  to  get  something  of  His  passion  which 
stopped  at  no  self-denial  that  He  might  accom- 
plish the  thing  whereunto  He  was  sent.  Let  us 
hear  Him  saying  *A11  power  is  given  unto  me  in 
heaven  and  in  earth.  Lo,  I  am  with  you  always. '  ' ' 
Let  us  remember  the  promise  which  He  gives  to 
all  those  who  are  sharers  with  Him  of  His  passion. 
Let  us  catch  the  spirit  of  the  Apostle  who,  remem- 
bering all  these  things,  reminds  us  that  night  and 
day  with  tears  he  warned  men  to  accept  this 
blessed  Christ,  and  assures  his  fellow-workers 
that  if  we  suffer  and  toil  with  Him  here  we  shall 
be  glorified  together. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE   PASTOR    AND   HIS   OWN    SOUL 

No  man  becomes  a  scholar  or  a  saint  in  his 
sleep.  There  is  an  exacting  price  to  be  paid  for 
everything  that  is  worth  while.  If  one  wishes 
spiritual  power  it  is  well  for  him  to  know  at  the 
outset  that  this  supreme  gift  cannot  be  had  unless 
one  is  willing  to  pay  the  full  price.  Is  there  a  sad- 
der chapter  in  the  history  of  the  apostles  than 
that  one  which  was  enacted  at  the  foot  of  the 
Mount  of  Transfiguration?  An  agonizing  father 
had  brought  a  suffering  son  to  the  disciples  and 
asked  that  they  relieve  the  suffering,  but  their 
well-meant  endeavors  were  useless  and  they  were 
impotent.  On  the  morrow  the  father,  with  a  faith 
that  had  not  failed,  approaches  the  Master  and 
tells  the  sad  story  of  a  need  the  disciples  were 
unable  to  satisfy.  To  him,  Jesus  said  *^If  thou 
canst  believe,  all  things  are  possible  to  him  that 
believeth.''  With  tears  running  down  his  face, 
the  father  cried,  **Lord,  I  believe.  Help  thou 
mine  unbelief." 

It  would  be  well  for  us  to  pause  a  moment  to 
catch  the  spirit  of  the  agonizing  father  and  to 
enter  into  his  passion  for  a  suffering  child.    The 

48 


THE  PASTOR  AND  HIS  OWN  SOUL     49 

answer  of  it  all  is  not  far  to  seek.  The  Master 
rebukes  the  spirit,  heals  the  child  and  delivers  him 
to  his  father.  What  do  you  suppose  were  the  feel- 
ings which  stirred  in  that  father ^s  heart?  Would 
you  blame  him  if  he  drops  upon  his  knees  and 
covers  the  Master's  hand  with  grateful  kisses? 

We  are  very  anxious  that  there  should  be  no 
emotion  about  religion.  Who  taught  us  that  it 
was  a  crime  for  a  father's  eyes  to  know  the  briny 
wash  of  tears,  or  his  heart  the  shout  of  laughter 
when  a  son  was  plucked  from  the  agonizing  touch 
of  pain  or  the  bony  fingers  of  impending  death? 
But  note  what  follows :  The  disciples,  discomforted 
and  ashamed,  say  to  the  Master,  **Why  could  not 
we  cast  him  out?"  Let  the  Church  never  forget 
the  answer : '  *  This  kind  can  come  forth  by  nothing 
but  by  prayer  and  fasting." 

It  is  months  later.  The  cross  has  done  its  work. 
Roman  soldiers,  who  before  had  never  known  fear, 
have  fallen  as  dead  men  before  a  power  w^hich  they 
could  not  understand.  The  door  of  the  sepulcher 
has  rolled  away  and  the  Master  has  spent  those 
never-to-be-forgotten  days  with  His  own,  and  His 
feet  are  touching  earth  for  the  last  time  before 
His  ascension.  As  He  is  parted  from  them  a  ring- 
ing challenge  is  sounded  in  their  ears:  ^*Go  quick 
everywhere  proclaiming  this  gospel.  Lo,  I  am 
with  you  unto  the  end." 

One  can  imagine  impetuous  Peter  saying  to 
John,  **Let  us  hurry  with  this  gospel.     Let  us 


50  PASTOR  AND  EVANGELIST 

start  this  very  moment."  But  John  would  have 
answered,  *'Said  He  not  unto  us,  *  Tarry  ye  in 
Jerusalem  until  ye  be  endued  with  power'?  Said 
He  not,  ^Ye  shall  receive  power  after  that  the 
Holy  Ghost  has  come  upon  you,  and  ye  shall  be 
witnesses  unto  me  both  in  Jerusalem  and  in  all 
Samaria  and  unto  the  utmost  part  of  the  earth'?" 
So  the  record  is  that  they  went  to  an  upper  room 
and  they  continued  in  one  accord  in  prayer  and 
supplication,  and  being  so  circumstanced,  there 
came  at  last  the  divine  enduement.  How  it  came 
and  what  it  was  we  may  not  understand — enough 
for  us  to  know  that  they  were  all  filled  with  the 
Holy  Spirit. 

And  then  what  happened?  Of  that  I  have  al- 
ready spoken.  I  have  sometimes  wondered  how 
Peter  dared,  after  all  his  failures,  to  preach  at  all. 
One  would  think  that  ordinary  modesty  and  the 
self-abasement  which  a  contrite  soul  would  feel 
would  have  stopped  his  lips,  but  in  his  own  humili- 
ation, he  realized  the  mercy  of  God  for  sinners 
like  himself  and  so  he  preached  that  matchless 
sermon  which,  in  some  respects,  at  least,  has  not 
been  surpassed  from  that  day  to  this. 

Let  us  meditate  on  the  difference  between  Peter 
in  the  palace  of  the  high  priest  with  a  cock  crow- 
ing in  his  face  and  Peter  on  the  Day  of  Pentecost, 
the  mouthpiece  of  the  Holy  Spirit ;  and  that  is  the 
difference  in  the  life  of  any  man  when  he  goes  to 
his  task  at  his  own  charges  with  no  power  but  his 


THE  PASTOR  AND  HIS  OWN  SOUL     51 

own  and  no  wisdom  but  his  own  little  ken  and 
when  he  goes  surcharged  with  the  wisdom  and 
power  of  God. 

One  of  our  magazine  writers  has  taken  Jona- 
than Edwards  to  task  because  he  said  **I  make 
it  my  first  business  to  look  after  the  salvation  of 
my  own  soul."  '^That  shows,"  the  writer  says, 
'^how  little  Jonathan  Edwards  appreciated  the 
real  spirit  of  the  Gospel.  It  shows  how  narrow  a 
conception  he  had  of  what  Christianity  really  is." 
The  answer  to  all  that  is  that  the  failure  to  under- 
stand is  not  with  Jonathan  Edwards  but  with  his 
critic.  These  things  are  spiritually  discerned  and 
only  those  who  understand  spiritual  things  can 
properly  understand  them.  We  often  quote  the 
words  of  Turner,  the  painter,  in  answer  to  the 
critic  who  said,  **I  do  not  see  any  sunsets  like 
yours,"  and  Turner  answered,  *^ Don't  you  wish 
you  could." 

It  is  related  that  the  poet  Blake  was  one  day 
walking  on  the  beach  at  Brighton  and  saw  the 
sun  rise  out  of  the  vast  deep.  An  old  English 
miser,  standing  near,  rubbed  his  hands  and  said, 
**Ah,  what  a  sight!  When  I  see  the  sun  come  up 
like  that  I  seem  to  see  a  golden  guinea.  What  do 
you  see  ? ' '  The  poet  answered,  *  ^  I  see  an  innumer- 
able company  of  the  heavenly  host  and  they 
cry,  *Holy,  holy.  Lord  God  Almighty.  Heaven 
and  earth  are  full  of  thy  glory.  Glory  be  to  thee 
0  God  Most  High!'  "    Don't  you  wish  you  could 


52  PASTOR  AND  EVANGELIST 

see  such  a  vision  and  hear  such  a  chorus  every 
time  the  sun  comes  up! 

Southey  wrote  a  life  of  John  Wesley  and  took 
the  printed  book  to  an  old  Wesleyan  woman  and 
asked  her  to  read  it  and  tell  him  what  she  thought 
of  it.  When  she  handed  the  book  back,  she  said, 
^^Sir,  thou  hast  nothing  to  draw  with  and  the 
well  is  deep."  How  could  Southey  understand 
the  mind  and  work  of  Wesley!  You  would  not  ex- 
pect Benedict  Arnold  to  write  the  life  of  George 
Washington,  nor  Robert  Ing«rsoll  to  write  the  life 
of  Dwight  L.  Moody. 

Jonathan  Edwards  was  right  when  he  said,  **I 
make  it  my  first  business  to  look  after  the  salva- 
tion of  my  own  soul. "  It  is  the  same  thing  which 
Paul  and  John  and  Luther  and  Knox  and  Bunyan 
and  Wesley  had  to  do  before  they  could  help  any 
other  souls.  How  can  you  give  if  you  do  not 
possess?  How  can  you  tell  others  of  that  which 
you  do  not  know  yourself?  The  first  question  the 
inquirer  propounds  is,  **Sayest  thou  this  of  thy- 
self or  did  another  tell  it  thee  ? ' '  Are  you  repeat- 
ing with  flippant  lips  a  twice  told  tale  or  has  this 
been  wrought  by  deep  experience  in  your  own 
soul?  Here  lies  the  secret  of  any  Christian's 
power  and  especially  that  of  the  pastor. 

Let  us  look  further  into  the  life  of  Jonathan  Ed- 
wards and  see  what  happened  after  he  was  assured 
of  his  own  salvation.  Wasn't  Jonathan  Edwards 
the  man  who  preached  at  the  little  church  in  En- 


THE  PASTOR  AND  HIS  OWN  SOUL     53 

field,  Mass.,  on  *^  Sinners  in  the  hands  of  an  angry 
God,"  from  the  text,  ** Their  feet  shall  slide  in 
due  time,"  and  as  he  preached  his  auditors 
grasped  the  back  of  the  seats  ahead  of  them  lest 
they  should  fall  into  the  bottomless  pit  on  the 
spot?  I  may  remark  in  passing  that  that  sermon 
was  a  written  one  and  read.  What  do  you  sup- 
pose would  have  happened  if  it  had  been  given 
extemporaneously  1  ^  *  But, '  ^  you  say,  *  *  what  utter 
misapprehension  of  the  scheme  of  the  Gospel; 
what  ignorance  concerning  the  truth  as  it  is  in 
Jesus.  Of  course,  we  know  a  great  deal  more  in 
our  time  and  we  can  state  the  gospel  in  truer 
terms."  That  we  will  not  deny,  but  will  content 
ourselves  with  suggesting — wouldn't  it  be  glorious 
if  with  our  greater  knowledge  we  had  Jonathan 
Edwards'  power?  Watch  the  unfolding  of  that 
life.  No  man  was  so  responsible  for  the  religious 
life  of  America  as  Jonathan  Edwards.  It  was  he 
who  was  the  center  of  the  Great  Awakening  which 
saved  America  in  its  early  days.  It  was  Jonathan 
Edwards  who  heartened  Whitefield  and  who  stood 
four-square  against  the  godless  spirit  which 
would  have  made  America  a  Merrymount  and  de- 
bauched a  nascent  nation  at  its  very  cradle.  As 
it  was,  the  enemies  of  righteousness  had  a  brief 
triumph  over  that  prophet  of  God. 

Because  he  insisted  on  Durity  in  the  home  and 
righteousness  in  public  places,  they  turned  him 
out  of  his  pulpit  in  Northampton  and  would  not 


54  PASTOR  AND  EVANGELIST 

allow  him  to  return  to  fill  his  old  pulpit  even  on 
a  summer's  day.  He  goes  to  preach  to  the  Stock- 
bridge  Indians,  but  while  there  he  writes  that  trea- 
tise on  the  human  will  which  the  leading  critics 
of  England  have  said  was  the  greatest  intellec- 
tual production  of  the  first  century  of  American 
thou^t.  Jonathan  Edwards,  dying  President  of 
Princeton  University, — ^he  is  the  man  who  said, 
**I  make  it  my  first  business  to  look  after  the  sal- 
vation of  my  own  soul."  Let  America  answer, 
what  world-wide  influences  still  pervade  the  earth 
which  had  their  rise  in  the  holy  commitment  of 
one  faithful  soul! 

On  my  last  visit  to  the  churches  in  New  Haven, 
I  took  some  of  the  denominational  Secretaries  of 
Evangelism  with  me,  and  we  went  to  the  Regis- 
trar's office  at  Yale  after  office  hours  and  asked 
permission  to  enter  that  little,  low-studded  room 
in  Connecticut  Hall.  To  me  it  is  a  holy  place,  and 
I  wanted  my  brethren  to  share  the  inspiration 
of  it.  Opposite  the  door  as  you  enter,  there  is 
a  little  low  fireplace ;  a  small  frame  hangs  over  it, 
within  which  this  message  is  printed — **  Horace 
Bushnell  of  the  class  of  1827  occupied  this  room 
in  1823-24."  That  would  seem  to  be  a  matter  of 
little  historical  interest  and  I  have  no  doubt  that 
hundreds  of  students  and  scores  of  professors 
have  passed  it  by  with  a  careless  glance,  but  I 
knew  what  Horace  Bushnell  himself  had  said 
concerning  that  very  room.    These  are  his  words : 


THE  PASTOR  AND  HIS  OWN  SOUL     55 

**  There  is  a  little  room  in  one  of  the  dormitories 
of  Yale  and  what  happened  there  I  hope  the  Rec- 
ording Angel  may  never  allow  to  be  blotted  out. ' ' 
It  was  there  that  the  divine  chrism  rested 
upon  the  great  man's  soul.  It  was  there  in 
his  youth  at  that  low  fireplace  that  he  made  the 
great  surrender.  It  was  from  under  the  lintel 
of  that  low  door  that  he  went  out  into  the  world 
to  carry  a  gospel,  the  blessedness  of  which  has 
not  faded  and  never  will  fade  from  the  hearts 
of  men. 

It  was  that  same  Horace  Bushnell  who  had 
the  grace  to  say,  ^*The  soul  of  reform  is  the  re- 
form of  the  soul.'*  When  he  was  traveling  with 
a  friend  in  the  White  Mountains,  as  the  shadows 
began  to  fall,  they  halted  on  the  mountain  side 
and  watching  the  far-stretching  valley  and  the 
shadows  growing  deeper  as  the  sun  sank  behind 
the  hills,  the  great  preacher  turned  to  his  friend 
and  said,  **One  of  us  ought  to  pray  here."  His 
friend  said  that  they  dropped  upon  their  knees 
and  Bushnell  prayed  until  '*I  did  not  dare  to 
reach  out  my  hand  in  the  gathering  darkness  lest 
I  should  touch  the  skirts  of  the  Almighty." 

The  glory  of  that  light  never  faded  from  Bush- 
nelPs  soul.  When  he  went  up  to  his  chamber 
for  the  last  time  it  became  the  ante-chamber  of 
heaven.  Joseph  H.  Twitchell,  coming  away  from 
Horace  Bushnell 's  home  when  the  seer  and 
prophet  of  everlasting  things  was  passing  into 


56  PASTOR  AND  EVANGELIST 

eternity,  sat  down  and  wrote  in  his  journal :  ^^Felt 
as  I  left  the  house  a  mighty  conviction  of  spiritual 
realities  and  a  desire  to  live  in  them." 

May  I  also  call  your  attention  to  the  vindication 
of  this  great  principle,  which  we  are  setting  forth, 
in  the  life  of  John  Wesley?  We  often  speak  of 
social  service,  of  ministering  to  the  sick  and  the 
unfortunate  as  if  that  were  something  new  and 
modern  in  the  history  of  religion.  No  community 
church  or  social  service  center  has  advanced  one 
iota  upon  the  principles  which  were  practiced  by 
John  Wesley.  In  scholarly  accomplishments,  in 
sacrifice  and  in  service,  we  are  but  belated  travel- 
ers in  the  path  where  John  Wesley  blazed  the 
way  and  still  walks  in  the  van.  But  all  this  did 
not  bring  Wesley  to  the  place  which  his  soul  knew 
he  must  occupy  in  order  to  have  the  power  of 
God.  He  tells  us  that  he  came  over  to  Georgia  to 
preach  to  the  Indians,  hoping  that  he  might  gain 
in  such  service  what  he  was  conscious  he  lacked, 
but  all  to  no  avail.  *^I  have  learned,"  he  said, 
*Svhat  I  least  suspected,  that  I  who  went  to  Amer- 
ica to  convert  the  Indians  was  never  myself  con- 
verted to  God." 

When  he  saw  the  happy  Moravians,  Wesley 
asked:  **What  is  it  which  they  possess  which  I 
do  not?  Are  they  read  in  philosophy?  So  am  I. 
In  ancient  or  modern  arts?  So  am  I.  Are  they 
versed  in  the  science  of  divinity?  I  too  have 
studied  it  many  years.    Can  they  talk  fluently  upon 


THE  PASTOR  AND  HIS  OWN  SOUL     57 

spiritual  things!  I  can  do  the  same.  Are  they 
plenteous  in  alms!  Behold  I  give  all  my  goods 
to  feed  the  poor.  I  have  labored  more  abun- 
dantly than  they  all.  Are  they  willing  to  suffer 
for  their  brethren !  I  have  thrown  up  my  friends, 
reputation,  ease,  country.  I  have  taken  my  life 
in  my  hands,  wandered  into  strange  lands.  I 
have  given  my  body  to  be  devoured  by  the  deep, 
parched  up  with  the  heat,  consumed  by  toil  and 
weariness.  But  does  all  this  make  me  acceptable 
to  God!  Does  all  this  make  me  a  Christian!  By 
no  means.  I  have  sinned  and  come  short  of  the 
glory  of  God.  I  am  alienated  from  the  life  of 
God.    I  have  no  hope." 

It  was  in  this  condition  of  things  that  he  came 
to  the  morning  of  that  never-to-be-forgotten  day. 
May  24th,  1738.  Some  of  his  Moravian  friends 
had  told  him  of  a  faith  that  brings  joy  and  peace 
through  believing.  He  said:  ^*I  resolved  to  seek 
it  unto  the  end. ' '  It  was  on  that  day  that  he  found 
it.  Lecky,  in  his  History  of  Morals,  records 
that  on  that  morning  before  he  went  out  to  his 
day's  task  he  turned  to  the  Bible  to  get  some 
word  that  might  cheer  him.  He  opened  at  these 
words:  ** There  are  given  unto  us  exceeding  great 
and  precious  promises,  even  that  ye  shall  be  par- 
takers of  the  divine  nature."  And  once  more, 
these  were  the  words  that  hit  him  in  the  face, 
**Thou  art  not  far  from  the  kingdom  of  God." 
How  far!    Just  twelve  hours.    It  was  that  very 


58  PASTOR  AND  EVANGELIST 

evening  that  he  records :  *^I  went  very  unwillingly 
to  a  society  in  Aldersgate  Street,  where  one  was 
reading  Luther's  preface  to  the  Epistle  to  the 
Eomans.  About  a  quarter  before  nine,  while  he 
was  describing  the  change  which  God  works  in  the 
heart  through  faith  in  Christ,  I  felt  my  heart 
strangely  warmed.  I  felt  I  did  trust  in  Christ, 
Christ  alone,  for  salvation,  and  the  assurance  was 
given  me  that  He  had  taken  away  my  sins,  even 
mine,  and  saved  me  from  the  laws  of  sin  and 
death.'' 

And  now  Lecky  takes  up  the  pen  again.  He 
says,  '^What  happened  in  that  little  room  in  Al- 
dersgate Street  on  that  night  in  May  was  of  more 
importance  to  England  than  all  the  victories  of 
Pitt  by  land  or  sea."  Our  own  Woodrow  Wilson 
declares  as  a  historian,  *^The  eighteenth  century 
cried  out  for  deliverance  and  light,  and  God  pre- 
pared John  Wesley  to  show  the  world  the  light  and 
blessing  of  His  salvation." 

Boreham  calls  our  attention  to  the  fact  that 
John  Wesley  was  thirty-five  years  of  age  when 
he  entered  the  Kingdom,  and  asks  why  Wesley's 
great  day  was  so  long  in  coming.  Wesley  always 
felt  that  the  fault  was  not  altogether  his  own. 
Any  minister  might  well  pray  God  to  dig  his  grave 
before  any  man  should  face  him  as  John  Wesley 
faced  William  Law,  who  had  been  one  of  his  min- 
isters. *'How  will  you  answer  to  our  common 
Lord,"  he  says,  ^*that  you,  sir,  never  led  me  unto 


THE  PASTOR  AND  HIS  OWN  SOUL     59 

the  light?  Why  did  I  scarcely  ever  hear  you 
nanie  the  name  of  Christ?  Why  did  you  never 
urge  me  to  faith  in  His  blood?  Is  not  Christ  the 
first  and  the  last?  I  beseech  you,  sir,  by  the 
mercy  of  God  whether  the  true  reason  of  you 
never  pressing  this  salvation  upon  me  was  not  this 
— that  you  never  had  it  yourself  ?'' 

It  is  sometimes  said  that  Methodism  was  born 
in  a  university,  but  that  is  not  true.  If  nothing 
had  happened  to  John  Wesley  but  what  happened 
to  hiTn  at  Oxford,  Methodism  would  never  have 
seen  the  light.  Well  says  Lecky,  *'It  is  hardly  an 
exaggeration  to  say  that  what  took  place  at  that 
humble  meeting  in  Aldersgate  Street  forms  an 
epoch  in  English  history.  The  conviction  which 
then  flashed  upon  one  of  the  most  powerful  and 
most  active  intellects  in  England  is  the  true  source 
of  English  Methodism."  It  was  from  that  hour 
that  Wesley  went  forth  to  pay  more  turnpike  toUs, 
to  preach  more  sermons,  and  to  win  more  souls 
than  any  man  who  ever  bestrode  a  beast.  Be- 
cause of  what  happened  at  Aldersgate  Street,  he 
became  ^^out  of  breath  pursuing  souls,''  and  so 
builded  himself  into  the  life  of  England  that  he 
influenced  her  for  good  more  than  any  man  of  his 
generation. 

I  leave  off  this  chapter  as  I  began  it :  Any  man 
who  wishes  power  with  God  and  men  must  pay 
the  price.  He  must  himself  be  in  vital  connection 
with  Jesus   Christ   through   a   personal   experi- 


60  PASTOR  AND  EVANGELIST 

ence.  Of  all  creeds,  the  blind  man's  creed  is  the 
simplest  and  most  far-reaching.  ^^This  I  know, 
that  whereas  I  was  once  blind,  I  now  see/' 

^'If  thou  hast  squandered  years  to  grave  a  gem 
Commissioned  by  thine  absent  Lord . 
And  while  'tis  incomplete,  others  would  bribe 

thy  needy  skill  to  them, 
Dismiss  them  to  the  street." 


CHAPTEE  V 

THE   HOME-GOING   PASTOR 

It  was  Thomas  Chalmers  who  said  a  home- 
going  pastor  makes  a  church-going  people. 
Among  the  most  delightful  fellowships  of  my 
early  ministry  was  my  association  with  Theodore 
L.  Cuyler,  who  perhaps  more  than  any  man  in 
America  at  that  time  was  given  to  systematic 
pastoral  work.  Our  parishes  joined  and  we  often 
discussed  the  blessedness  of  pastoral  work.  His 
example  greatly  strengthened  me  in  my  deter- 
mination to  know  my  people  personally. 

At  the  end  of  his  long  pastorate  he  said  to  his 
people,  ^*  Pastoral  work  has  always  been  my  pas- 
sion. It  has  been  my  rule  to  know  everbody  in  this 
congregation  if  possible,  and  seldom  have  I  al- 
lowed a  day  to  pass  without  a  visit  to  some  of 
your  homes."  Dr.  Cuyler  said  to  me  in  his  eager, 
breezy  fashion,  **My  motto  has  been,  study  God's 
word  in  the  morning  and  door  plates  in  the  after- 
noon. The  physical  exercise  was  a  benefit  and 
the  spiritual  benefits  were  ten  times  greater. ' '  A 
celebrated  preacher  once  said  to  him,  ^*I  envy  you 
your  love  for  pastoral  work.  I  would  not  do  it  if 
I  could,  and  I  could  not  do  it  if  I  would,  for  a 
single  hour  with  a  family  in  trouble  uses  up  more 

61 


62  PASTOR  AND  EVANGELIST 

of  my  vitality  than  to  prepare  a  sermon.''  Cuy- 
ler  answered,  *'Tlie  business  of  a  minister  is  to 
endure  this  strain  upon  his  nervous  system  if  he 
would  be  a  comforter  as  well  as  a  teacher  of  his 
people.''  It  is  a  connnent  on  the  effectiveness  of 
Dr.  Cuyler's  method  that  his  church  has  had  all 
these  years  a  spirit  of  fellowship  that  was  most 
marked,  and  of  all  the  great  churches  that  Brook- 
lyn has  delighted  in,  no  one  of  them  has  to-day 
so  strong  a  personality  and  so  vital  a  family  life. 
Your  pulpit  is  only  a  part  of  your  ministry. 
One  word  in  private  may  do  more  to  win  a  soul 
to  Christ  than  a  sermon  in  the  pulpit.  There  is 
a  good  deal  of  cheap  talk  and  unseemly  joking 
about  pastoral  work.  With  a  sneer  it  is  said, 
*'The  pastor  spends  his  time  in  listening  to  the 
complaints  of  the  saints  about  neuralgia  and 
rheumatism,  and  the  gossip  of  the  to^vn  about  the 
foibles  of  their  neighbors,  and  he  inquires  with 
great  solicitude  if  little  Willie  has  cut  his  last 
tooth."  Now  if  a  pastor  really  does  prostitute 
his  opportunity  and  make  a  gossip  of  himself, 
verily  he  has  his  reward.  But  I  wish  to  testify 
that  whatever  success  may  have  come  to  me  in  a 
long  ministry  it  has  come  more  through  pastoral 
work  than  by  any  other  method.  In  the  homes  of 
my  people,  I  was  able  to  present  Jesus  as  I 
could  not  do  it  in  the  pulpit.  I  was  able  to  insist 
upon  a  personal  choice  of  Christ  and  to  rejoice 
with  men  and  women  whom  God  had  helped  me  to 


THE  HOME-GOING  PASTOR  63 

lead  into  the  kingdom.  I  realize  the  difficulties 
that  attend  pastoral  work  in  city  life,  but  for 
more  than  twenty  years  I  was  able  to  do  it  in 
New  York  City  and  was  greatly  cheered  in  my  soul 
by  the  doing  of  it. 

I  do  not  hesitate  to  say  that  the  best  prepara- 
tion for  pulpit  work  was  obtained  through  pastoral 
work.  I  went  to  talk  to  my  people  not  about  the 
foolish  things  of  daily  gossip  but  about  the  great 
things  of  the  Kingdom.  I  was  indeed  solicitous 
about  all  their  interests,  for  the  true  pastor  is 
concerned  to  weep  with  those  who  weep,  as  well 
as  to  rejoice  with  those  who  rejoice,  but  in  that 
flow  of  heart  pastor  and  people  become  so  knitted 
together  that  no  relationship  outside  the  family 
itself  is  quite  so  tender  nor  so  long  remembered. 
To  see  the  children's  children  of  those  you  have 
led  to  Christ  and  to  behold  that  for  three  genera- 
tions the  grace  of  God  has  signally  manifested 
itself  through  devotion  on  your  part  is  to  set  the 
joy  bells  ringing  with  such  melody  that  the  dis- 
cords of  life  are  unable  to  quench  them. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE   HOUSE    OF    OBED-EDOM 

''The  House  of  Obed-Edom."  It  comes  to  me 
across  the  years.  In  my  childhood  a  dear  old 
deacon  somewhere  in  every  prayer  would  offer  the 
petition  that  our  homes  might  be  ''like  the  house 
of  Obed-Edom,  where  the  ark  rested."  The  house 
of  Obed-Edom!  I  knew  it  well.  There  the  day 
was  bounded  on  the  east  by  supplication  and  on 
the  west  by  thanksgiving.  There  the  family  wel- 
comed the  voice  of  prayer  as  a  dear  and  a  sacred 
thing.  There  was  no  cant  about  it.  The  saint 
and  father  remembered  each  child  by  name  in 
every  morning  prayer.  If  a  boy  has  not  gone  ut- 
terly over,  to  stand  in  the  way  of  sinners  and  sit 
in  the  seat  of  the  scornful,  there  will  be  a  tug  at 
his  heart  when  the  noblest  man  he  knows  is  talk- 
ing to  God  about  him  as  friend  talketh  with  friend. 

And  the  Sabbath  in  the  House  of  Obed-Edom! 
May  the  memory  of  that  never  be  blotted  out.  A 
day  when  a  clean  body  and  a  clean  soul  had  fel- 
lowship. Morning  prayers  a  little  more  spiritual 
than  on  other  days,  and  then  the  singing  of  the 
great  hymns  of  the  church  with  the  family 
grouped  around  the  melodeon  or  the  piano.  Then 
the  ringing  of  the  bell  high  up  in  the  country 

64 


THE  HOUSE  OP  OBED-EDOM  65 

steeple.  The  fun  was  of  a  mild  order,  of  course, 
but  fun  is  a  relative  term,  after  all.  After 
Church  and  Sunday  School  were  over,  it  was  not 
so  bad,  of  a  summer  afternoon,  to  lie  amid  the 
clover  with  the  fragrance  in  your  nostrils  and 
watch  the  fleecy  clouds  as  God  drove  them  like 
spotless  flocks  in  azure  pastures;  or  to  count  the 
swallows  as  they  circled  to  their  homes  in  the 
chimneys  or  their  nests  under  the  eaves ;  and  then, 
if  you  had  been  good  all  the  week,  there  was  the 
promised  trip  to  the  graveyard.  The  mold  is 
on  the  lips  which  smiled  as  they  made  the  promise 
and  the  hands  you  clasped  were  folded  long  ago, 
and  the  gray  head  laid  to  rest  in  that  same 
churchyard.  But  my  children  to  this  day  think 
it  is  fun  to  have  me  tell  the  simple  annals  of  the 
poor  and  how  yonder  man  and  woman,  whose  dust 
is  sleeping  there,  fought  the  gOod  fight  of  faith. 
They  dressed  in  homespun  but  gained  a  victory 
greater  than  that  which  was  ever  plucked  from 
the  cannon's  mouth. 

*^The  House  of  Obed-Edom  where  the  ark 
rested."  It  makes  all  the  difference  in  the  world 
whether  the  ark  comes  to  the  house  as  a  sacra- 
ment or  as  a  ceremony,  whether  love  or  necessity 
throws  open  the  door.  The  ark  had  rested  in  the 
house  of  Abinadab  for  twenty  years  and  nothing 
worth  mentioning  had  happened.  One  member  of 
the  family  looked  after  it,  and  the  others  went 
about  their  ordinary  concerns  unmindful  of  it.    It 


66  PASTOR  AND  EVANGELIST 

may  be  so  in  our  time.  The  wife  or  mother  may 
be  forced  to  take  the  responsibility  for  the  reli- 
gion of  the  family.  The  motto  on  the  wall  may 
declare  that  *^  Christ  is  the  head  of  this  house- 
hold," but  outsiders  would  be  inclined  to  think 
by  the  things  that  happen  there  that  He  was 
only  a  silent  partner.  Abinadab  and  Obed-Edom 
were  evidently  not  the  same  kind  of  men  and  so 
the  ark  had  a  different  reception  in  each  house. 

The  Sabbath  may  be  observed  by  law  or  by  love. 
The  children  may  be  forced  to  go  to  church  and 
hate  the  day  and  the  service.  On  the  other  hand, 
a  loving  devotion  in  the  home  may  sanctify  the 
day  so  that  until  the  last  pulse  beat  of  the  chil- 
dren it  will  be  to  them 

"Day  of  all  the  week  the  best, 
Emblem  of  eternal  rest." 

In  one  home  the  Bible  may  be  read  as  an  ancient 
document  to  be  criticized  or  ridiculed.  It  might 
better  never  be  opened.  In  another,  it  is  opened 
with  reverence,  read  with  delight  and  treasured 
in  an  honest  heart.  If  one  is  not  minded  to  know 
and  love  the  truth,  he  will  never  find  it.  IngersoU 
read  the  same  Bible  that  Lincoln  read  prostrate 
on  his  face  before  God  in  the  White  House.  One 
scoffed,  the  other  prayed. 

"The  owlet  atheism 
Sailing  on  obscene  wings  athwart  the  noon 


THE  HOUSE  OF  OBED-EDOM  67 

Drops  his  blue  fringed  lids  and  holds  them  close 
And  hooting  at  the  glorious  sun  in  heaven 
Cries  out  'Where  is  it?'" 

Obed-Edom  signifies  obedience.  To  obey  is 
better  than  sacrifice.  He  wbo  does  most  for  God, 
receives  most  from  God.  This  is  sensible. 
*'Know  ye  not  to  whom  ye  yield  yourselves  ser- 
vants to  obey;  bis  servants  ye  are?" 

David  did  not  understand  tbe  fate  that  befell 
Uzziah,  wbo  with  impious,  or  faithless,  or  care- 
less bands  undertook  to  steady  tbe  ark  at  tbe  cost 
of  bis  life.  So  tbe  king  went  back  to  bis  palace 
dismayed  and  unbappy. 

Tbe  record  does  not  tell  us  wbat  blessed  things 
happened  to  tbe  House  of  Obed-Edom  after  he 
gave  asylum  to  tbe  ark.  We  wish  we  knew  in 
what  way  tbe  blessing  took  form.  It  was  so  pro- 
nounced that  it  left  no  room  for  question  and  word 
of  it  came  to  tbe  ears  of  David,  tbe  king.  It  was 
only  there  for  three  months,  but  in  that  time  won- 
ders bad  happened  and  it  was  told  King  David 
saying,  *^The  Lord  bath  blessed  tbe  House  of 
Obed-Edom  and  all  that  pertaineth  to  him  because 
of  tbe  Ark  of  God."  That  was  a  language  which 
David  could  understand.  He  knew  what  it  meant. 
He  bad  received  some  blessings  from  the  band  of 
Jehovah  himself,  so  David  brought  the  ark  from 
tbe  House  of  Obed-Edom  into  the  city  with  glad- 
ness. If  you  want  to  know  how  glad  he  was  read 
the  twenty-fourth  Psalm. 


68  PASTOR  AND  EVANGELIST 

The  record  says:  ** David  danced  before  the 
Lord  with  all  his  might.''  There  have  always 
been  people  who  have  taken  offense  when  any- 
body has  done  anything  for  the  Lord  with  all  his 
might.  It  is  written,  *^Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord 
thy  God  with  all  thy  might  and  mind  and 
strength,"  but  in  all  ages  men  have  got  into 
trouble  by  doing  it.  David  had  a  wife,  she  was 
SauPs  daughter,  and  a  chip  of  the  old  block.  She 
was  one  of  a  trinity,  the  other  two  members  of 
which  were  the  wife  of  Socrates  and  the  wife  of 
John  Wesley.  When  she  saw  the  king  dancing 
before  God,  **she  despised  him,"  but  for  once 
David  did  not  budge.  He  got  his  Caudle  lecture 
when  the  dancing  was  over,  but  he  plucked  up  his 
spirit  and  said  unto  Michal,  **It  was  before  the 
Lord  which  chose  me  before  thy  father  and  before 
all  his  house  to  appoint  me  ruler  over  the  people 
of  the  Lord."  Long  rued  Michal  the  jesting  of 
that  day ! 

In  the  days  of  Obed-Edom  only  one  house  could 
have  the  ark.  Now  every  home  may  have  what 
the  ark  stood  for — ^worship  and  devotion.  I  make 
my  plea  for  a  family  altar  in  every  Christian 
home.  How  can  God's  cause  prosper  when  His  al- 
tars are  broken  do^vn?  How  can  Christianity  tri- 
■umph  in  the  nation  if  it  fails  in  the  home?  You 
ask  people  to  give  one-tenth  of  their  income  to  the 
Lord,  but  the  Church  wants  praying  members  as 
well  as  paying  members,  and  it  will  appear  that 


THE  HOUSE  OF  OBED-EDOM  69 

prayer  will  open  the  purse  strings  as  nothing  else 
can  do.  Prayers  and  alms  go  together.  The  evan- 
gelistic spirit  of  the  pastor  can  find  no  better  place 
for  expression  than  in  the  family  life.  How  many 
of  your  families  have  family  prayer  daily?  How 
many  bow  reverently  at  every  meal  and  return 
thanks  to  Him  who  is  the  giver  of  every  good? 
Set  up  a  family  altar  by  the  nursery  door;  that 
may  keep  Christ  there,  for  the  children  are  being 
snatched  away  by  the  enemy  of  their  souls.  It  is 
far  easier  to  save  a  child  than  to  rescue  a  prodigal 
— and  then  the  bitter  memories  of  the  husks  and 
the  swine,  and  ruined  hopes  and  broken  hearts. 

You  say  it  is  impossible  to  have  prayers  in  a 
city  home  amid  the  pressure  of  social  and  business 
life.  I  answer,  we  can  do  anything  that  ought  to 
be  done.  Daniel  in  Babylon,  prime  minister  of 
the  realm,  found  time  to  pray,  and  so  did  Glad- 
stone, prime  minister  of  England.  The  man  who 
represents  more  money  than  any  man  in  the  world 
finds  time  for  family  prayers,  and  even  on  a  jour- 
ney calls  his  family  and  his  associates  together 
and  humbly  seeks  the  blessing  and  enlightenment 
of  God.  I  know  a  merchant  prince  in  New  York 
whose  house  has  been  like  the  House  of  Obed- 
Edom  for  the  Ark  of  God  has  rested  there  and 
God's  blessings  have  been  multiplied  thereby. 
Three  of  his  sons  have  gone  into  the  ministry  and 
all  his  children  are  vital  forces  in  the  world's  no- 
blest work.    He  has  given  a  half  hour  every  morn- 


70  PASTOR  AND  EVANGELIST 

ing  for  a  quarter  of  a  century  to  the  study  of 
God's  word,  and  every  morning,  with  his  children 
about  him,  has  committed  them  one  by  one  to  the 
gracious  watch  care  of  the  Father.  If  Burns 
could  say  that  old  Scotia's  grandeur  came  from 
the  humble  house  where  the  cotter  commended  his 
family  to  God,  so  in  our  time  such  a  home  as  I 
have  spoken  of  will  leave  its  influence  for  good  for 
untold  generations  and  in  many  lands. 

Set  up  the  family  altar !  See  that  your  people 
honor  God  and  He  will  honor  them.  The  fame  of 
one  home  has  come  out  of  the  long  ago.  After 
almost  three  millenniums,  we  are  repeating  a  name 
which  had  otherwise  been  buried  and  forgotten. 
Nobody  cares  about  the  plan  or  the  size  of  the 
house  of  Obed-Edom,  whether  the  painter  had 
done  his  finest  work,  or  the  rooms  had  only  the 
fresco  of  the  smoke  of  years.  Nobody  cares  how 
much  the  house  cost,  or  who  built  it.  One  fact 
rises  out  of  the  dust  of  its  timbers  and  will  be 
remembered  as  long  as  stars  shine  and  rivers  run. 
It  held  the  Ark  of  Jehovah  and  for  that  reason 
God  blessed  the  house  of  Obed-Edom. 


CHAPTER  VII 

ACCIDENTAL   EVANGELISM 

We  are  constantly  passing  through  experiences 
which  give  new  valuation  to  spiritual  things. 
Our  own  people  are  doing  the  same  and  here  is 
a  great  field  of  opportunity  which  you  ought  not  to 
neglect.  A  layman  recently  in  giving  an  address 
to  preachers  said,  ^^I  suggest  that  in  your  consid- 
eration of  next  Sunday's  sermon  you  be  guided 
by  this:  Suppose  you  knew  that  you  had  but  a 
few  days  to  live  and  next  Sunday  was  to  be  your 
last  chance  to  preach,  what  would  be  your  mes- 
sage! This  may  seem  an  unfair  test  but  I  offer 
it  for  its  stimulating  effect." 

A  lady  once  asked  Wesley,  **  Suppose  that  you 
knew  you  were  to  die  at  twelve  o'clock  to-morrow 
night,  how  would  you  spend  the  intervening 
time r '  ^' How,  madam !' '  he  replied.  * ' Why,  just 
as  I  intend  to  spend  it  now.  I  should  preach  this 
night  at  Gloucester,  and  again  at  five  to-morrow 
morning;  after  that  I  should  ride  to  Tewkesbury, 
preach  in  the  afternoon,  and  meet  the  societies  in 
the  evening.  I  should  then  repair  to  friend  Mar- 
tin's house,  who  expects  to  entertain  me,  converse 
and  pray  with  the  family  as  usual,  retire  to  my 
room  at  ten  o'clock,  commend  myself  to  my  heav- 

71 


72  PASTOR  AND  EVANGELIST 

enly  Father,  lie  down  to  rest,  and  wake  up  in 
glory.'' 

Is  it  not  worth  while  for  ns  to  ask  ourselves 
the  question  now  and  then — ought  we  not  to  be 
getting  the  utmost  possible  out  of  life  so  that  as 
we  go  along  there  would  be  fewest  regrets  and 
most  of  effectiveness? 

The  late  Professor  Bowne  of  Boston  University 
has  left  behind  him  a  thrilling  word,  addressed 
primarily  to  his  students:  *'You  are  not  here  to 
be  happy.  If  you  set  out  with  that  purpose  you 
will  have  a  tough  time  of  it.  There  is  not  happi- 
ness enough  to  go  around  and  the  kind  of  which 
there  is  enough  is  not  worth  having.  No  one  can 
ever  be  built  up  into  a  crowned  soul  by  being 
favored  with  happiness.  But  when  you  go  in  for 
the  best  things,  the  fundamental  things,  and  keep 
on  doing  so,  somehow  or  other  you  will  be  likely 
to  have  a  good  deal  of  trouble  and  pain,  but  it 
will  be  pain  that  will  have  something  divine  in  it 
and  something  that  you  would  not  exchange  for 
any  so-called  *  happiness'  under  the  sun.  The 
gates  of  time  will  spring  to  behind  you  before 
long — they  will  spring  to  behind  some  of  us  soon 
and  behind  all  of  us  before  long.  The  question 
then  would  be  not — what  place  had  we — what  did 
men  think  of  us— but  what  did  God  think  of  us 
and  were  we  built  into  His  kingdom." 

The  temptations  in  the  ministry  are  just  as 
great  as  they  are  in  business.    As  ministers  we 


ACCIDENTAL  EVANGELISM  73 

need  now  and  then  to  be  brought  up  with  a  round 
turn,  to  find  out  under  some  stress  of  circumstance 
just  where  we  ought  to  be  putting  our  emphasis, 
what  kind  of  men  we  ought  to  be,  what  we  ought 
to  be  doing  in  our  own  family,  in  our  church,  and 
in  the  community  to  make  our  lives  most  worth 
while.  May  I  show  you  the  effect  of  this  in  a 
typical  story  recorded  in  one  of  our  magazines? 
The  Editor  of  the  Atlantic  gives  me  permission 
to  quote  from  an  article  which  appeared  in  its 
columns  some  years  ago  under  the  title  *^  Acci- 
dental Salvation."  It  is  out  of  the  ruts  and  it  is 
of  thrilling  interest.  It  will  be  worth  his  time  for 
every  minister  as  well  as  every  layman  to  read, 
mark,  learn  and  inwardly  digest  the  deep  mes- 
sage which  hides  in  these  words  of  wit : 

**  Parker  was  a  sorehead,  sullen  at  breakfast, 
surly  at  dinner,  quarrelsome  in  the  office,  crusty 
on  the  street,  a  bear  at  the  party,  a  hog  on  the 
road,  a  fly  in  the  ointment.  His  wife  was  afraid 
of  him,  the  children  were  afraid  of  him,  his  clerks 
were  afraid  of  him,  the  very  porter  on  the  Pull- 
man was  afraid  of  him.    Parker  was  a  grouch. 

**One  night  Parker  rose  at  2  a.m.  to  fasten  a 
flapping  shutter.  Going  to  the  window  he  emitted 
a  yelp  of  distress  which  brought  all  hands  on  deck. 
They  turned  on  the  light.  Parker  was  discovered 
sitting  on  the  floor  digging  at  something  imbedded 
in  the  sole  of  his  left  foot.  Presently  it  let  go  and 
Parker  held  up  a  half  a  needle.  It  was  a  pretty 
clear  case  that  the  other  half  had  remained  in  his 


74  PASTOR  AND  EVANGELIST 

system.  Parker  slept  but  little  during  the  re- 
mainder of  the  night,  fearing  blood  poison.  Im- 
mediately after  breakfast,  he  sought  the  family 
physician,  who  after  patient  investigation,  told 
him  he  must  have  stepped  on  an  already  broken 
needle  for  there  was  no  fragment  of  the  steel  to 
be  found.  But  Parker  knew  that  he  was  carrying 
in  his  body  a  deadly  thing  which  had  already 
started  on  its  final  mission. 

^  ^  He  left  the  office  early  that  afternoon  and  went 
home,  surprising  Mrs.  Parker  with  a  display  of 
more  tenderness  than  she  had  observed  in  him 
since  their  honeymoon,  which  had  long  passed  into 
total  eclipse.  At  dinner  he  appeared  greatly  in- 
terested in  the  conversation  of  Bill  and  Susy 
about  the  High  School  party.  He  patted  the  dog, 
who  looked  at  him  with  undisguised  incredulity. 
All  that  night  Parker  lay  awake  preparing  for  the 
speedy  winding  up  of  his  terrestrial  affairs.  He 
remembered  the  stories  he  had  heard  of  similar 
cases,  how  the  needle  traveled  through  the  whole 
body  of  the  victim  until  the  heart  was  reached 
and  then — pouff !  just  like  that.  He  saw  himself 
sitting  around  in  the  house  in  dressing  gown  and 
slippers,  holding  his  head  in  his  hands,  waiting 
for  the  fatal  moment.  Before  dawn,  however,  he 
had  resolved  to  face  the  uncertainty  of  the  future 
like  a  gentleman,  a  decision  which  brought  a  warm 
glow  of  pride. 

^*He  began  to  find  a  new  interest  in  the  plans 
of  other  people.  When  he  went  out  for  lunch, 
Parker  gave  a  blind  man  a  quarter,  and  bought 
a  War  Cry  of  a  Salvation  Army  lassie.  He  called 
up  the  Trustees  of  the  Children's  Hospital,  in- 
quired how  they  were  getting  along.    It  appeared 


ACCIDENTAL  EVANGELISM  75 

that  he  had  decided  to  add  a  cipher  to  his  previ- 
ous subscription. 

* '  Within  six  months  all  the  people  who  knew  the 
old  chap  had  recovered  from  their  bewilderment 
about  him — that  is,  they  ceased  to  make  their  curi- 
osity articulate. 

'^Parker  had  found  himself.  His  business  was 
doubled,  his  home  was  a  temple  of  devotion  and 
contentment,  the  local  papers  were  speaking  of 
him  as  one  of  our  heading  citizens.'  The  shadow 
never  lifted,  but  it  was  not  an  unpleasant  shadow. 
Every  night  he  went  to  sleep  and  bade  himself 
good-by.  In  the  morning  he  rose,  saying  to  him- 
self, 'Perhaps  this  is  the  last  day.  I  must  pack  it 
brimful  of  the  things  that  are  most  worth  doing.' 
Parker  accidently  achieved  salvation.  Sometimes 
his  eye  grew  moist  and  his  throat  ached  when  he 
reflected  upon  the  sympathetic  understanding  of 
his  wife,  who  studiously  avoided  any  reference  to 
the  impending  tragedy  and  who  in  spite  of  her 
secret  sorrow  acted  up  to  the  situation  in  manner 
heroic.  Whenever  she  pressed  his  hand,  or  patted 
him  on  the  cheek,  it  was  her  way  of  saying,  *It  is 
better  we  should  not  talk  about  it,  dear. '  She  was 
a  good  sport,  mused  Parker. 

''The  fact  that  Mrs.  Parker,  while  moving  the 
rug  in  her  husband's  room  the  Friday  morning 
following  the  accident  discovered  half  of  a  needle 
the  point  driven  into  the  floor  may  have  also 
vouchsafed  her  courage  to  see  the  terrible  thing 
through  with  resignation." 

That  seems  like  a  facetious  story,  but  how  ter- 
ribly true  to  life  it  is.  What  utter  reversion  of 
interests  would  take  place  if  we  knew  our  days 


76  PASTOR  AND  EVANGELIST 

were  numbered !  When  we  say,  *  *  Sonl,  thou  hast 
much  goods  laid  up  for  many  years,"  we  are 
ready  to  eat,  drink  and  be  merry,  but  if  He  in 
whose  hands  our  life  is  should  say  to  us  '^To- 
night!" how  we  would  wish  we  had  been  wise  in 
time.  **A  million  of  dollars  for  a  moment  of 
time!"  But  the  bid  is  not  taken.  Can  you  bring 
the  truth  of  it  all  to  the  careless  who  come  within 
your  reach  before  it  is  too  latel  If  you  do  not 
win  them  they  mil  continue  to  be  the  bond  slaves 
of  selfish,  base  desires  and  utterly  lost  to  God,  to 
themselves  and  to  the  world. 


CHAPTEE  VIII 

THE   PASTOR  AT   EPHESUS 

Every  true  pastor  longs  for  a  message  from  his 
Lord.  If  he  has  done  anything  worth  while,  he 
would  be  glad  to  know  of  it  that  he  might  comfort 
his  heart  with  the  message  when  the  fire  of  his 
zeal  burns  low  and  he  is  like  to  fail.  If  there  is 
any  serious  fault  in  his  ministry,  he  would  like 
to  know  that  while  there  is  time  to  remedy  it. 
He  does  not  want  to  be  aroused  too  late.  It  is 
sad  to  learn  of  a  loss  too  late  to  avoid  it.  It  is  a 
bitter  thing  to  know  of  the  nature  of  your  malady 
when  there  is  no  chance  for  a  recovery. 

We  are  interested  in  those  pastors  and  churches 
of  Asia  and  the  long  ago.  We  know  that  human 
nature  is  pretty  much  the  same  in  all  ages  and 
that  the  sins  of  Asia  are  the  same  sins  that  flourish 
now  in  Europe  and  in  America.  If  I  can  find  out 
what  the  Spirit  said  to  pastors  two  thousand  years 
ago,  I  shall  know  what  He  would  say  to  me  now 
under  the  same  conditions. 

When  I  read  those  ancient  messages  the  years 
slip  away  and  in  the  place  of  cities  far  distant 
in  time  and  place,  I  hear  the  names  of  cities  I 
know  so  well,  and  pastors  too  whose  hearts  are 
athrill  to  know  just  how  they  stand  before  God 

77 


78  PASTOR  AND  EVANGELIST 

and  who  would  give  everything  to  know  just  what 
the  Spirit  would  say  to  them  and  to  their  church. 

I  would  not  venture  to  bring  a  message  of  my 
own.  It  would  be  an  impertinence  for  me  to  un- 
dertake to  act  as  mentor  to  my  brethren,  but  I 
may  in  modesty  and  self-abasement  and  efface- 
ment  remind  myself  and  my  brethren  of  the  mes- 
sages which  came  with  irresistible  power  from 
Him  who  holds  the  seven  stars  in  His  hands ;  the 
first  and  the  last,  who  openeth  and  no  man  shut- 
teth  who  shutteth  and  no  man  openeth,  who  was 
dead  and  is  alive  again,  and  behold  He  is  alive 
forevermore.  If  such  an  one  is  to  speak  the 
greatest  and  wisest  of  us  all  might  well  halt  his 
breath  to  listen.  **He  that  hath  an  ear,  let  him 
hear  what  the  Spirit  saith  unto  the  churches." 

^*Unto  the  Pastor  of  the  Church  at  Ephesus 
write:"  I  do  not  know  your  name  but  I  know 
the  names  of  some  of  your  parishioners.  It  must 
be  a  thrilling  thing  to  be  the  pastor  of  the  Church 
at  Ephesus.  When  you  go  down  the  aisles  and 
enter  the  pulpit  there  are  the  marks  of  the  men 
in  whose  footsteps  you  walk.  Men  whose  ability 
and  devotion  were  such  that  their  names  will  shine 
as  stars  in  the  firmament.  Bishops  and  secre- 
taries and  pastors  who  have  mounted  to  the  high 
places  of  opportunity  and  power. 

If  you  are  not  weary  of  the  repetition  and  do 
not  wish  at  times  that  you  had  been  yourself  an 
.ancestor  and  a  forerunner  instead  of  a  descendant 


THE  PASTOR  AT  EPHESUS  79 

and  successor,  let  me  call  the  roll  of  some  of  your 
great  predecessors.  The  Apostle  Paul  himself 
founded  your  Church  at  Ephesus  and  was  pastor 
there  for  three  years.  He  turned  over  his  work 
to  Timothy,  his  son  in  the  Gospel  and  in  his  letter 
to  the  Ephesians,  which  is  preserved,  he  urged 
Timothy  to  stay  there  and  look  after  his  people. 
Aquila,  Priscilla,  Apollos  and  Tychicus,  most 
famous  among  the  saints  of  the  early  Church,  all 
laborers  here.  To  crown  its  ancient  list  of  wor- 
thies, St.  John  was  for  years  its  pastor,  and  your 
pulpit  was  his  throne  in  the  last  years  of  his  life. 
Standing  where  you  stand  he  remembered  that 
epitome  of  the  Gospel:  ^* Little  children,  love  one 
another,"  and  when  his  parishioners  wondered 
why  he  so  often  repeated  it,  he  answered,  *^When 
that  is  done,  all  is  done."  Before  we  have  done 
perhaps  we  will  see  the  reason  why  the  present 
Church  needs  the  same  repetition. 

Do  you  realize  what  a  legacy  you  have  and  what 
a  marvelous  thing  it  is  to  stand  in  such  a  pulpit? 
Perhaps  it  may  comfort  you  to  know  that  even 
such  men  as  I  have  named  needed  as  we  do  to 
listen  to  the  message  which  the  Spirit  gives  to  the 
churches.  It  is  quite  probable  that  this  message 
which  came  to  the  Church  at  Ephesus  was  sent 
when  Timothy  was  its  pastor. 

But  you  are  now  the  *^  angel  of  the  Church  at 
Ephesus,"  and  it  is  to  you  that  this  most  vital 
and  grateful  message  comes : 


80  PASTOR  AND  EVANGELIST 

**I  know  thy  works  and  thy  toil  and  patience 
and  that  thou  canst  not  bear  evil  men  and  didst 
try  them  which  call  themselves  apostles  and  are 
not,  and  didst  find  them  false;  and  thou  hast  pa- 
tience and  didst  bear  for  my  name's  sake  and 
hast  not  grown  weary.'' 

It  ought  to  make  you  very  happy  to  know  that 
all  you  are  doing  for  the  community  is  appreci- 
ated. Nobody  can  call  yours  the  church  of  the 
holy  loafers.  You  are  on  the  job.  That's  a  fine 
parish  house,  and  the  Dorcas  Society  and  the  La- 
dies' Guild  and  the  Men's  Club  and  the  Boy 
Scouts  and  the  Civic  Club  keep  its  doors  aswing 
from  morning  till  night.  The  message  gives  spe- 
cial emphasis  to  your  patience.  You  do  not  begin 
a  thing  and  drop  it.  You  do  not  stop  your  agita- 
tion for  better  laws  and  cleaner  streets  and  finer 
parks  because  some  of  the  city  fathers  are  soon 
tired  and  let  go.  You  bear  with  the  frailties  and 
foibles  of  the  mayor  and  aldermen  as  well  as  the 
vacillating  of  the  saints.  You  are  patient  with 
those  who  want  position  and  you  get  what  good 
you  can  even  from  those  who  want  to  see  their 
names  in  the  papers  as  the  price  of  their  sub- 
scriptions and  their  toil. 

I  was  once  pastor  of  the  Church  at  Ephesus 
myself  and  I  know  just  what  you  are  up  against. 
I  knew  Demas,  the  quitter,  and  Diotrephes,  who 
loved  to  be  noticed,  and  Alexander,  the  copper- 
smith.   I  congratulate  you  on  your  patience  and 


THE  PASTOR  AT  EPHESUS  81 

especially  because  your  patience  was  shown  for 
Christ's  sake.  That  is  the  only  kind  of  patience 
that  will  last  till  seventy  times  seven,  till  the  go- 
ing down  of  the  sun. 

And  with  it  all  you  are  ready  to  show  up  wicked 
and  designing  men.  It  takes  courage  to  do  that, 
and  it  often  brings  good  results.  **The  wicked 
flee  when  no  man  pursueth,"  but  they  make  better 
time  when  you  can  get  an  indictment  by  the 
grand  jury. 

I  have  always  thought  well  of  Martin  Luther 
for  throwing  an  ink  bottle  at  the  devil.  That  re- 
quires backbone,  whether  you  throw  it  all  at 
once  or  drop  by  drop  from  a  fountain  pen.  I 
am  glad  you  stand  against  all  iniquities,  whether 
the  men  who  transgressed  wore  ermine  or  home- 
spun. 

And  then  you  are  commended  for  your  ortho- 
doxy. **Thou  hatest  the  work  of  the  Nicolaitans 
which  I  also  hate.''  I  do  not  know  anything  about 
the  Nicolaitans,  and  all  the  commentators  seem 
to  be  as  ignorant  as  I  am.  They  may  have  been 
transcendentalists  or  holy-rollers  or  plain  deists, 
but  whatever  they  were,  the  spirit  says,  **I  hate 
them, ' '  and  so  strong  a  word  must  have  indicated 
a  pernicious  doctrine  and  a  harmful  life.  Thank 
God  you  stand  firm  against  all  erroneous  doctrines 
to  banish  them  from  the  earth.  What  a  list  of 
virtues  you  possess!  What  a  record  of  faithful 
service !    All  this  stands  to  your  credit. 


82  PASTOR  AND  EVANGELIST 

But  here  is  a  debit  sheet  with  one  entry  only. 
**I  have  this  against  thee.''  Well,  with  a  dozen 
entries  on  the  credit  sheet  and  only  one  on  the 
debit  side,  you  surely  will  make  a  great  showing. 
What  is  that  one  fault?  **I  have  this  against 
thee,  that  thou  hast  left  thy  first  love.'' 

AYill  a  little  thing  like  that  make  any  serious 
trouble!  *^Eemember  therefore  whence  thou  hast 
fallen  and  repent  and  do  the  first  works,  or  else 
I  will  come  upon  thee  quickly  and  remove  the  can- 
dlestick out  of  its  place."  Is  it  so  serious  as  that? 
A  ruined  pastorate,  a  church  overthrown,  and 
Ichabod  written  on  its  walls.  No  light  and  so  the 
candlestick  throwTi  away!    Is  that  true? 

Yes,  alas  it  is  true.  When  love  has  gone  noth- 
ing worth  while  is  left.  Brotherhood,  fatherhood, 
motherhood  mean  nothing  when  love  is  gone. 
Here  stands  a  woman  with  graying  hair  and  pale 
face,  her  eyes  have  lost  their  luster  through  scald- 
ing tears.  Her  husband,  portly  and  prosperous, 
enters  the  room.  With  deep  emotion  she  steps 
toward  him  and  says,  **  John  I  must  talk  to  you. 
I  cannot  stand  it  any  longer.  Once  I  was  the  ap- 
ple of  your  eye.  I  was  more  to  you  than  all  the 
world  beside.  Your  kisses  were  on  my  lips.  You 
were  happy  to  be  with  me  and  nothing  could  take 
you  from  me.  All  that  is  changed  now.  You  do 
not  care  for  my  company.  You  go  your  own  way 
without  regard  to  me.  You  are  cold  and  distant ; 
you  do  not  kiss  me  and  they  tell  me  you  love  an- 


THE  PASTOR  AT  EPHESUS  83 

other.  I  shall  die  if  that  is  true, ' '  and  she  reaches 
her  hands  to  his  shoulders. 

The  strong  man  throws  off  the  clinging  hands. 
*'What  are  you  complaining  about  I  Didn't  I  find 
you  a  poor  girl,  working  in  a  factory  and  living 
in  a  humble  house  I  Didn  't  I  give  myself  to  work 
for  you  ?  Look  at  your  home  now !  I  have  clothed 
you  in  silk  and  given  you  a  mansion  to  live  in. 
There  are  diamonds  on  your  fingers  and  furs  on 
your  back,  there  is  silver  and  china  in  the  closet 
and  carpets  and  rugs  on  your  floors,  and  a  chauf- 
feur and  automobile  at  your  call.  What  are  you 
complaining  about  f 

How  the  eyes  of  the  suffering  woman  blaze  as 
she  says,  ^*What  do  I  care  about  your  silks  or 
your  diamonds,  your  silver  or  your  china  or  your 
mansion!  I  would  go  back  to  the  cottage  where 
you  found  me  and  put  on  the  calico  I  used  to  wear, 
I  would  walk  the  bare  floors  like  a  queen,  if  I 
could  only  have  back  the  love  you  gave  me  and 
which  made  earth  a  heaven  to  my  soul. ' ' 

It  is  only  a  few  months  since  London  was  en 
fete.  Why  were  Piccadilly  and  Trafalgar  Square 
crowded?  Why  were  all  the  streets  packed  with 
the  populace!  Why  did  the  titled  and  the  great 
unite  with  the  common  people  in  glad  acclaim? 
It  was  love  which  broke  down  all  barriers.  It  was 
love  which  set  the  bells  ringing  in  church  and 
cathedral  and  set  the  people  in  holiday  attire  to 
vie  with  one  another  till  the  very  heavens  were 


84  PASTOR  AND  EVANGELIST 

filled  with  shout  and  colors.  A  princess  had  re- 
'  V  nounced  her  royal  title  and  for  the  love  she  bore 
the  man  of  her  choice  she  turned  her  back  forever 
upon  one  of  the  world's  greatest  thrones.  All 
England  and  the  world  hailed  with  glad  acclaim  a 
love  which  made  such  a  surrender  with  bounding 
joy.  It  was  the  holy  day  of  a  mighty  love.  Sup- 
pose that  when  Princess  Mary  had  left  the  arm  of 
her  father,  the  King,  and  had  faced  the  Arch- 
bishop of  Canterbury,  standing  by  the  side  of  the 
bridegroom,  when  the  priest  had  asked  the  fateful 
question,  *'Wilt  thou  have  this  man  to  be  thy 
wedded  husband,''  the  Princess  had  answered,  *'I 
do  not  love  him."  What  would  have  happened? 
London  would  have  been  hung  with  shadows,  the 
ringing  bells  would  have  been  hushed.  The  service 
would  have  stopped,  the  Archbishop  would  have 
closed  his  book.  Mary  would  have  walked  with 
blanched  face  across  the  nave  of  that  great  temple 
of  silence  and  reconciliation  leaning  on  the  arm  of 
the  King  as  she  entered  it  and  the  bridegroom 
would  have  gone  his  way  alone.  Only  love  can 
bind  two  hearts  together  and  only  love  can  unite 
the  soul  with  the  heavenly  Bridegroom.  He  will 
take  nothing  less. 

It  is  the  same  answer  which  the  Holy  Spirit 
makes  to  the  pastor  and  the  church  at  Ephesus 
and  New  York  and  Chicago.  What  do  I  care 
about  your  tall  steeples  and  your  vested  choirs, 
your  high  altars  and  your  Gothic  windows  ?    What 


THE  PASTOR  AT  EPHESUS  85 

are  your  cathedrals  and  your  stately  buildings 
to  me?  I  do  not  need  your  money.  The  gold 
and  silver  of  the  earth  are  mine.  With  one  fulmi- 
nating stroke  I  could  split  the  Andes  or  the 
Himalayas  and  throw  gold  enough  into  the  sun- 
light to  make  cathedrals  for  the  world.  What 
I  ask  is  your  love.  If  you  do  not  give  me  that 
I  do  not  care  what  else  you  give,  it  is  nothing 
to  me." 

Have  you  forgotten,  0  pastor  at  Ephesus, 
when  the  light  of  God's  face  shone  upon  you, 
when  you  could  say: 

"Jesus,  T  love  thee.    Thou  art  to  me 
Dearer  than  ever  mortal  can  be." 

Have  you  forgotten  how  when  you  went  into  the 
pulpit  in  the  old  happy  days  your  eyes  kindled, 
your  hands  were  cold  and  your  head  hot  and 
your  heart  was  ablaze  with  the  passion  of  a  great 
overwhelming  love?  If  the  fire  is  out  upon  the 
altar  and  you  stand  shivering  where  once  you 
stood  in  power;  if  you  only  go  through  a  form 
from  which  the  power  has  gone,  may  God  pity 
you  and  help  you,  for  your  candlestick  is  already 
empty.  Services  are  nothing.  It  is  service  that 
God  wants.  No  institution  can  take  the  place  of 
a  divine  inspiration. 

In  some  way  we  must  get  back  the  old  love. 
*' Remember  from  whence  thou  art  fallen  and  re- 
pent and  do  thy  first  works."    How  did  you  get 


86  PASTOR  AND  EVANGELIST 

that  first  love  and  how  did  you  lose  it?  Did  it 
not  grow  warm  in  fellowship  and  prayer?  Are 
the  hinges  rusted  on  the  closet  door  where  once 
you  kept  your  tryst  with  God  ?  So  many  have  no 
appetite  for  the  things  of  God.  Food  all  about 
but  no  appetite.  The  doctor  comes  to  the  home 
and  goes  away  shaking  his  head.  What  is  the 
matter?    Heart  failure — and  the  end. 

The  only  question  Jesus  cared  to  ask  of  Peter 
before  his  ordination  was  '^Lovest  thou  me?" 
That  is  the  one  question  that  the  Spirit  asks  of 
the  minister  at  Ephesus.  No  service  is  worth 
while  without  love.  What  avails  your  orthodoxy 
if  you  do  not  love?  The  devils  are  orthodox; 
they  believe  and  tremble.  What  avails  all  your 
plans  and  schemes,  your  clubs  and  guilds?  All  is 
hollow  mockery  without  love.  It  is  love  which 
makes  the  pulpit  a  flaming  light.  It  is  love  which 
brings  the  wayward  home,  the  careless  from  their 
wanderings,  the  prodigal  from  his  husks.  Love 
never  faileth.  0  Pastor  of  Ephesus,  come  back 
to  thy  first  love ! 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE   PASTOR  AT   SARDIS 

I  know  you  will  be  glad  to  meet  the  pastor  of 
the  First  Church  in  Sardis.  His  fame  is  in  all 
the  churches.  Good  old  Alexander  White  of  Edin- 
burgh says  of  him,  ^^Themistocles,  Plutarch  tells 
us,  could  not  get  to  sleep  at  night  so  loud  were  all 
others  in  the  praise  of  Miltiades,  and  the  ministers 
of  the  other  churches  in  Asia  were  like  Themis- 
tocles  in  the  matter  of  their  sleep,  so  full  were  all 
their  people's  mouths  of  the  name  and  renown 
of  the  minister  of  Sardis.  When  he  went  to  the 
communion  season  at  Ephesus  and  Smyrna  and 
Pergamos  and  Thyatira,  for  years  after  the  capti- 
vated people  could  tell  you  his  text  and  at  the 
very  mention  of  his  name  they  would  break  out 
about  his  preaching.  His  earnestness,  and  im- 
pressiveness  and  his  memorable  sayings  all  con- 
tributed to  make  the  name  of  the  minister  at 
Sardis  absolutely  a  household  word  up  and  down 
the  whole  presbytery." 

This  is  what  the  people  say,  but  what  says 
the  spirit?  **I  know  thy  works,  that  thou  hast 
a  name,  that  thou  livest  and  thou  art  dead/'  I 
hear  the  pastor  stammering,  *'How  can  you  say 
that?     I  have  the  finest  church  and  the  tallest 

87 


88  PASTOR  AND  EVANGELIST 

spire  in  town,  and  onr  congregations  are  the  larg- 
est. There  are  more  cultivated  people,  more 
millionaires  and  near-millionaires  in  our  church 
than  in  any  other  church  in  the  city.  We  have 
the  best  music  and  the  most  dignified  service, 
and  the  most  popular  church  in  town." 

^^Thou  art  dead!'^  is  the  awful  answer  of  the 
spirit.  *^I  know  thy  works/'  Men  look  at  the 
form.  They  are  pleased  with  externals.  Their 
estimate  is  of  no  account  with  Him  whose  servant 
you  are  and  before  whom  you  stand.  You  are 
proud  of  your  services.  They  are  only  painted 
pictures.  Your  Master  said,  * '  The  words  I  speak 
unto  you  they  are  spirit  and  they  are  life." 
Measure  yourself  by  that  standard.  They  say 
you  preach  great  sermons,  but  what  is  a  great 
sermon f  By  what  rule  is  it  measured?  Do  homi- 
letics  and  rhetoric  and  logic  and  scholarship  de- 
cide the  worth  of  a  sermon?  Is  the  sermon  an 
end,  or  the  means  to  an  end?  Of  what  use  is  an 
engine  if  there  is  no  power  in  it?  The  object  of 
your  sermon  is  a  bigger  thing  than  its  subject, 
and  the  effect  of  it  is  the  test  of  its  worth.  A 
dead  man  has  no  conviction,  not  even  that  he  is 
dead.  How  can  a  dead  man  preach  a  living  ser- 
mon? He  may  go  through  the  motions,  galvan- 
ized by  some  passing  thrill,  but  at  best  he  is  only 
one  who  plays  upon  a  pleasing  instrument.  Your 
sermons  are  like  cypress  trees ;  they  bear  no  fruit. 

**I  know  thy  works!"    Love  of  praise  has  con- 


THE  PASTOR  AT  SARDIS  89 

sumed  you  as  it  did  Cicero.  Stern  old  Phocion 
cried,  **"Wliat  foolish  or  wicked  thing  have  I  said 
that  the  people  so  applaud  me."  But  you  are  of 
another  kind.  You  are  a  glutton  for  praise.  You 
have  to  be  fed  upon  it  daily.  Your  soul  grows 
faint  without  it.  Others  have  walked  the  same 
path  before  you.  That  is  one  of  the  reasons  why 
Bunyan  marks  a  path  from  the  pulpit  steps  to 
the  city  of  destruction,  and  a  sturdy  old  Scots- 
man says,  '*Dose  a  minister  sufficiently  with 
praise  and  you  will  drown  his  soul  in  perdition, 
if  God  does  not  interfere  to  save  him." 

**I  know  thy  works."  The  inner  light  has 
failed.  While  you  were  busy  here  and  there  about 
things  that  seemed  to  be  necessary,  you  forgot 
to  nourish  the  holy  flame.  Once  you  knew  the 
glory  of  it.  If  any  one  had  told  you  that  you 
would  lose  it,  you  would  have  said,  **That  can 
never  be.  I  have  had  too  deep  an  experience." 
If  any  one  had  told  you  you  would  ever  be  indif- 
ferent about  it,  you  would  have  said,  ^*Is  thy 
servant  a  dog  that  he  should  do  this  thing."  But 
you  are  now  in  Samson's  place.  When  you  would 
arouse  yourself  to  execute  the  old-time  power, 
you  are  surprised  to  find  it  has  departed  and 
now  you  seek  to  accomplish  by  art  what  once 
you  did  by  inspiration.  You  have  '  *  a  great  future 
behind  you."  It  is  of  no  use  to  remind  yourself 
of  the  heights  where  you  once  stood.  The  mill 
will  never  turn  again  with  old  flood. 


90  PASTOR  AND  EVANGELIST 

My  heart  goes  out  to  the  minister  at  Sardis.  I 
know  him  well.  He  is  preaching  on  all  sorts  of 
topics  and  questions  that  are  in  public  thought. 
He  has  never  had  any  diplomatic  training,  but 
he  is  seeking  to  solve  the  intricate  questions  of 
national  diplomacy.  He  wants  to  be  up-to-date. 
He  has  spent  three  weeks  in  Europe  and  now  he 
is  able  to  tell  his  admiring  people  all  about  how 
to  settle  the  questions  which  the  war  has  raised. 
He  never  worked  a  day  in  his  life  in  a  cotton 
factory  or  a  steel  mill,  but  he  really  wants  to 
settle  the  great  questions  w^hich  trouble  our  social 
life,  and  so  with  the  best  of  intentions,  he  rushes 
unafraid  where  wise  men  fear  to  tread.  He  never 
majored  in  philosophy  or  higher  or  lower  criti- 
cism, but  he  feels  he  ought  to  bring  some  assertion 
to  the  settlement  of  Biblical  criticism  and  what 
he  lacks  in  critical  scholarship,  he  can  make  up 
in  rhetoric,  so  that  his  congregation,  who  are 
mostly  uninformed,  will  be  greatly  impressed.  Of 
course  the  great  scholar  walks  softly,  but  the 
temptation  to  the  newly-rich  intellectually  is  al- 
most irresistible,  especially  when  he  occupies  a 
pulpit  and  no  one  is  at  liberty  to  talk  back.  When 
Prof.  Borden  P.  Bowne  was  on  trial  for  heresy, 
he  was  asked  by  the  prosecutor  to  state  his  posi- 
tion on  certain  matters  of  Biblical  criticisms.  The 
philosopher  bowed  his  massive  head  and  said, 
*'That  is  a  matter  outside  of  my  department.  I 
would  not  feel  qualified  to  express  an  opinion  on 


THE  PASTOR  AT  SARDIS  91 

a  matter  that  only  scholars  after  years  of  study 
are  qualified  to  discuss." 

In  all  these  things,  the  pastor  at  Sardis  is  actu- 
ated by  the  highest  motives,  but  in  view  of  the 
message  which  the  Spirit  gives,  he  is  making  first 
what  is  only  secondary  at  the  best.  He  is  not  a 
diplomat,  he  is  not  a  politician,  nor  is  he  pri- 
marily a  professor  of  philosophy  or  social  science. 
When  his  Master  was  on  the  earth  he  had  a  fine 
chance  to  preach  on  politics  and  social  questions 
and  to  organize  a  propaganda  against  Rome  and 
against  the  injustice  of  wealth  and  power,  but 
He  did  not  improve  that  opportunity.  When 
John,  languishing  in  prison  and,  disturbed  by 
distempered  imaginings,  sent  word  to  Him,  say- 
ing, **Art  thou  he  that  should  come,  or  look  we 
for  another,"  He  said  to  this  messenger,  **Wait 
here  for  a  little."  He  then  applied  a  little  indi- 
vidualistic gospel  on  a  blind  man  and  a  leper  and 
a  seeker  for  truth  and  said,  ^^You  go  back  and 
tell  John  what  you  have  seen.  The  blind  see, 
the  leper  is  cleansed,  the  poor  have  the  gospel 
preached  unto  them.  That  will  be  answer  enough. 
John  will  know." 

What  the  people  in  Sardis  need  to  know  is  this 
— Have  you  any  message  from  headquarters? 
What  has  God  spoken!  Is  there  any  message 
from  the  Lord?  You  profess  to  be  His  ambassa- 
dor. An  ambassador  cannot  represent  his  King 
unless  he  bears  some  message  from  Him.     Has 


92  PASTOR  AND  EVANGELIST 

He  talked  with  you!    If  so,  tell  us  what  He  has 
said.    All  other  voices  fade  in  His  presence. 

I  hope  the  pastor  at  Sardis  will  be  mindful  of 
the  fact  that  he  is  also  his  brother's  keeper  and 
that  he  must  answer  both  for  his  acts  and  his 
influence.  All  unknown  to  him,  other  ministers  in 
lesser  pulpits  are  looking  to  see  what  posi- 
tion the  great  pastor  at  Sardis  takes  that  they 
may  know  what  to  do  themselves.  As  there  w£re 
a  generation  of  lesser  Beechers,  and  Talmages  and 
Moodys  and  Brooks,  so  the  pastor  at  Sardis  is 
reproducing  himself — others  following  in  his 
steps.  If  he  fails  to  lead  aright,  how  great  will 
be  his  condemnation.  A  young  preacher,  like  a 
young  lawyer  or  a  young  physician,  or  a  young 
professor,  is  likely  to  regard  surface  conditions, 
the  form  and  the  technique.  He  will  imitate  the 
minister  at  Sardis  in  the  things  which  are  least 
worthy  of  imitation.  This  leader  must  realize 
that  and  hold  himself  accountable  as  God  will 
also  hold  him. 

The  terrible  thing  about  all  this  is  that  outside 
ministers  and  churches  were  really  deceived. 
Sardis  had  a  fine  reputation,  a  reputation  for  be- 
ing alive  and  successful,  a  model  for  aU  churches 
to  follow.  Let  us  thank  God  that  the  word  of 
the  Spirit  to  the  minister  at  Sardis  is  not  a 
judicial  sentence  but  a  warning  of  love.  '*Be 
thou  watchful  and  stablish  the  things  that  re- 


THE  PASTOR  AT  SARDIS  93 

main  which  were  ready  to  die  for  I  have  found  no 
work  of  thine  fulfilled  before  my  God." 

*^  Awake  thou  that  sleepest  and  arise  from  the 
bed  and  Christ  shall  give  thee  light.''  No  work 
of  thine  fulfilled!  What  then  is  the  work  of  the 
Church?  Let  us  be  clear  at  that  point.  All 
things  which  interest  humanity  are  of  concern  to 
the  Church,  but  nothing  of  her  work  is  completed 
unless  it  eventuates  in  a  changed  life  and  a  Chris- 
tian character.  What  has  been  your  fault,  0 
pastor  of  Sardis!  Remember  your  commission. 
Keep  it  and  repent.  Why  did  I  call  you  into 
the  ministry?  What  was  that  high  calling  which 
you  received?  Said  a  great  pastor  to  me,  **I  had 
worked  for  a  crowd  and  a  sensation  and  a  place 
in  the  sun.  I  see  now  that  I  must  turn  to  the 
cross  of  Jesus.  I  must  carry  on  until  my  work 
eventuates  in  the  great  surrender  of  the  soul  to 
Jesus  Christ."  That  is  why  you  are  in  the  min- 
istry and  you  are  to  make  full  proof  of  that  min- 
istry in  this  regard. 

Hold,  or  I  will  come  in  an  hour  unexpected. 
Carry  him  out!  Room  for  the  corpse!  He  is 
dead.  Speak  the  words  of  love  for  God.  There 
is  no  response.  No,  it  must  not  be!  Some  day 
the  tired  hands  of  the  minister  of  Sardis  will  be 
folded  over  his  breast.  Like  the  old  doctor  of  the 
Bonnie  Brier  Bush  he  will  be  ** tired  to  death.'* 
No  greater  tribute  can  be  paid  him  than  to  say 


94  PASTOR  AND  EVANGELIST 

*^He  is  worn  out  preaching.''  He  did  not  rust 
out.  He  did  not  trifle.  He  wore  himself  out,  but 
he  did  not  die.  He  is  to  live  forever  and  those 
whom  he  led  to  Christ  will  call  him  blessed  here 
and  hereafter. 

There  is  good  cheer  at  the  last.  **Thou  hast  a 
few  names  in  Sardis  which  did  not  defile  their 
garments.  They  shall  walk  with  me  in  white.'' 
Think  of  it!  *^I  will  confess  His  name  before  my 
Father."  There  is  your  name  in  the  Lamb's 
Book  of  Life.  How  small  everything  else  looks 
now !  Only  one  thing  counts.  O  pastor  of  Sardis, 
mount  your  pulpit  steps !  It  is  a  great  hour.  The 
eternities  are  bending  low! 


CHAPTER  X 

THE   PASTOR  AT   LAODICEA 

There  is  one  challenge  and  asseveration  made 
to  the  pastor  of  each  of  the  seven  churches.  It  is 
the  only  statement  which  is  seven  times  repeated. 
It  is  enough  to  drive  the  blood  back  upon  the 
heart  and  blanch  the  cheek  of  every  careless 
pastor  both  then  and  now.  '^I  hnow  thy  works.'' 
There  is  no  chance  for  subterfuge,  excuse  or  alibi. 
It  is  not  a  question  of  reputation,  of  orthodoxy 
or  heterodoxy.  I  pierce  all  camouflage  and  tear 
aside  all  cloaks  and  coverings.  Every  one  stands 
naked  and  alone  before  me.  No  refuge  of  lies 
can  avail.    /  know, 

A  judge  may  be  deceived,  a  jury  may  be  sub- 
orned, a  crowd  may  be  stampeded,  the  people 
may  be  cajoled,  a  minister  may  be  one  thing  in  a 
pulpit  and  quite  another  outside  of  it.  He  may  be 
one  thing  to  his  family  and  another  thing  to  his 
parishioners.  His  speech  may  be  of  gold,  his  acts 
of  clay.  On  the  street  he  may  be  full  of  zeal,  but 
sloth  may  lie  in  wait  at  his  study  door.  He  may 
talk  of  high  ideals  but  he  may  be  the  slave  of  the 
rich  and  powerful.  Let  no  man  forget  that  it  is 
the  ** faithful  and  true  witness"  which  says  to  each 
one  of  us  *^I  know  thy  works." 

95 


96  PASTOR  AND  EVANGELIST 

To  no  pastor  is  this  declaration  more  heart- 
searching  than  to  the  pastor  at  Laodicea.  What 
saith  the  spirit?  Thou  sayest  *^I  am  rich  and 
increased  with  goods  and  have  need  of  nothing. 
I  have  a  fine  church,  a  big  audience,  a  beautiful 
parsonage,  wealthy  friends,  a  good  salary  and  a 
Pierce- Arrow  car,  why  should  I  worry ! ' ' 

Listen!  ^*I  know  that  thou  are  wretched  and 
miserable  and  poor  and  blind  and  naked."  If 
that  sentence  smites  your  ears  as  you  cross  the 
threshold  of  the  country  club,  I  had  as  soon  be 
David  before  Nathan  as  to  be  in  your  place.  Tra- 
dition has  it  that  the  angel  of  the  Church  at  Lao- 
dicea was  no  other  than  that  same  Archippus  to 
whom  Paul  sends  a  message  in  his  letter  to  the 
Colossians,  **Say  to  Archippus,  take  heed  to  the 
ministry  which  thou  hast  received  in  the  Lord 
that  thou  fulfil  it."  Would  it  not  be  unspeakably 
sad  if  after  these  words  of  the  Apostle  Paul  ad- 
dressed to  Archippus  as  a  young  man,  he  had 
heeded  them  so  little  that  he  grew  old  in  his  indif- 
ferent ministry  and  when  his  hair  was  turning 
gray,  he  should  receive  this  stinging  rebuke  from 
Him  who  knows  the  hearts  of  men  and  makes  no 
mistake?  Is  there  a  sadder  sight  on  earth  than 
a  gray-haired  minister  who  has  laid  up  no  rich 
treasure  of  uncalculating,  unstinted,  unselfish 
service?  If  the  gray-haired  Archippus  does  not 
want  to  beg  in  the  harvest  and  have  nothing,  if 
he  does  not  wish  to  go  into  the  grave  of    the 


THE  PASTOR  AT  LAODICEA  97 

broken-hearted,  let  him  listen  before  it  is  too  late 
to  the  words  which  the  youthful  Archippus  heard 
from  one  who  loved  him,  ^*Take  heed  to  the  min- 
istry which  thou  hast  received  in  the  Lord  that 
thou  fulfil  it."  Pilloried  forever  in  a  place  of 
shame,  Archippus  and  his  Church  have  coined  a. 
word  which  all  men  shrink  from  and  detest.  To 
be  called  a  Laodicean  is  to  be  cast  out  alike 
by  saint  and  sinner,  to  be  branded  in  such  fashion 
that  no  man  can  bear  it  without  unspeakable 
shame. 

And  what  is  his  condemnation!  '^Thou  art 
neither  cold  nor  hot.  I  would  thou  wert  cold  or 
hot.  So  then  because  thou  art  lukewarm  and 
neither  cold  nor  hot,  I  will  spew  thee  out  of  my 
mouth.''  The  spirit  of  the  age  is  the  spirit  of 
Laodicea.  The  ordinances  of  the  Church  are  all 
right,  if  you  do  not  make  too  much  fuss  over  them. 
It  is  well  to  be  a  little  religious,  but  do  not  be  in- 
sistent about  it.  Religion  is  not  a  thing  to  be 
talked  about.  It  is  not  a  thing  to  which  a  man 
should  give  his  energy;  it  is  an  incidental  thing; 
don't  fret  about  it.  Don't  let  your  piety  get  the 
best  of  you,  so  that  wicked  men  will  not  be  happy 
when  you  are  about.  You  can  have  some  good 
ideas  without  bringing  them  forward.  You  do 
not  need  to  carry  anything  to  excess.  You  can  be 
friendly  without  being  intimate.  You  can  be 
scholarly  without  being  pedantic,  and  by  the  same 
token  you  can  be  religious  without  being  enthu- 


98  PASTOR  AND  EVANGELIST 

siastic.  It  is  bad  form  to  appear  to  be  interested 
in  anything  religious.  Interest  is  reserved  for 
athletics  and  amusements  and  business  and  poli- 
tics.   It  is  out  of  place  in  religion. 

So  the  men  of  Laodicea  said  to  Archippus  and 
Archippus  came  at  last  to  echo  the  same  sentences 
and  in  so  doing  he  reversed  every  true  method  of 
judgment  both  for  himself  and  for  his  Church. 
Here  is  what  Archippus  said  of  himself  and  of 
his  people:  *^I  am  rich  and  increased  with  goods 
and  have  need  of  nothing. ' '  This  is  what  the  just 
judge  said  of  him:  *^Thou  art  wretched  and  mis- 
erable and  poor  and  blind  and  naked."  You  peo- 
ple of  Laodicea  are  on  the  high  road  of  commerce. 
Your  gold  is  counted  by  the  merchant  princes  and 
is  known,  among  the  traders,  but  your  gold  is 
only  tinsel.  I  counsel  thee  to  buy  of  me  gold  tried 
in  the  fire,  the  coin  of  good  deeds,  that  thou  may- 
est  be  rich.  Laodicea  is  an  emporium  of  trade. 
Fabrics  fit  for  kings  and  queens  are  woven  here. 
Their  rare  texture  is  the  admiration  of  the  world. 
You  glory  in  that,  but  let  me  say  to  you  that  a 
white  robe  is  more  regal  than  a  purple  one.  To 
be  clad  in  righteousness  is  far  better  than  to 
build  a  big  barn,  and  you  had  better  beg  for  bread 
in  this  world  than  to  cry  for  water  in  the  next. 
*^So  I  exhort  thee  to  buy  of  me  white  raiment 
that  thou  mayest  be  clothed  and  that  the  shame 
of  thy  nakedness  do  not  appear."  You  walk  the 
streets  with  painted  faces,  with  ointment  and  cos- 


THE  PASTOR  AT  LAODICEA  99 

metics  you  anoint  yourselves.  There  is  henna  on 
your  finger  nails  and  under  your  eyes.  Let  me 
anoint  your  eyes  with  eyesalve  that  thou  mayest 
see.  0  Archippus,  what  is  going  to  happen  with 
you?  Will  it  be  ^'like  people  like  priest/^  or  will 
you  find  your  Pentecost  and  after  that  shall  it 
be  *^like  priest  like  people?^' 

It  is  conviction,  it  is  devotion,  it  is  eager  zeal 
that  alone  can  save  you.  I  wish  you  were  hot  or 
cold.  It  was  Father  Taylor,  the  sailor  preacher, 
who  said  **I  would  rather  see  the  devil  stand 
straight  up  in  a  man.  That  is  some  sign  that  he 
is  coming  out. ' '  The  thing  I  cannot  stand  is  indif- 
ference. The  cold  realize  their  need  and  stretch 
out  their  hands  to  Him  who  can  furnish  warmth 
and  light  and  life,  but  the  lukewarm  will  do 
nothing. 

^^What  are  your  speculations  f  said  his  friends 
to  the  dying  Faraday,  most  devoted  of  Christian 
scientists.  The  Christian  scholar  replied,  ^  ^  Specu- 
lations, I  iiave  no  speculations.  I  am  resting  on 
certainties.  I  know  Whom  I  have  believed  and 
am  persuaded  that  He  is  able  to  keep  that  which 
I  have  committed  unto  Him  against  that  day. ' ' 

In  another  book,  Heralds  of  a  Passion,  I  have 
set  forth  the  passion  of  Jesus  and  have  declared 
that  Christianity  being  a  life  must  be  impres- 
sioned  and  that  I  reaffirm. 

But  with  all  the  terrible  heart  searching  which 
the  spirit  gives  to  Archippus,  let  the  minister  of 


V 


100         PASTOR  AND  EVANGELIST 

Laodicea  behold  the  tears  in  the  eyes  of  Him  who 
speaks:  *^As  many  as  I  love  I  rebuke  and  chas- 
ten. ' '  These  are  not  only  the  warnings  of  a  friend, 
they  are  admonition  of  a  father  and  a  mother. 
It  is  because  I  love  you  that  I  cannot  bear  to 
see  you  go  on  indifferent  to  the  end.  It  is  because 
of  what  I  see  in  you  that  might  be  mighty  for  God 
and  men  if  once  aroused  that  I  am  seeking  to  stir 
you  out  of  your  lethargy.  My  heart  is  yearning 
for  you,  but  that  is  not  all.  ' '  Behold  I  stand  at  the 
door  and  knock."  With  gracious  importunity,  he 
does  not  say  to  the  husbandman  of  the  fruitless 
tree,  *^Cut  it  down,  why  cumbereth  you  the 
ground  f  That  decree  has  not  yet  gone  forth. 
There  is  a  story  good  enough  to  be  true  of  how 
Holman  Hunt,  the  artist,  when  he  had  painted 
that  famous  picture  where  Christ  is  waiting  out- 
side the  door,  was  so  moved  by  the  thought  of  it 
that  he  himself  threw  wide  open  the  door  of  his 
own  heart  saying,  ^*Come  in,  thou  heavenly 
Guest." 

This  is  His  promise,  **I  will  come  in  to  him 
and  will  sup  with  him  and  he  with  me. ' '  How  can 
two  sup  together  except  they  be  agreed!  How 
can  the  Jesus  whose  tears  fell  upon  the  shingly 
beach  at  Galilee  and  in  the  fastness  of  the  moun- 
tains, how  can  He  consort  with  those  who  are 
lukewarm  religiously?  How  can  He  bring  the 
pearls  of  His  devotion  to  those  who  by  their  lives 
will  trample  them  under  their  feet  ?    He  who  arose 


THE  PASTOR  AT  LAODICEA        101 

to  pray  a  great  while  before  it  was  day;  He  who 
was  so  zealous  that  they  took  Him  to  be  John 
the  Baptist,  or  one  of  the  prophets  come  back, 
how  could  He  fellowship  with  the  indifferent  and 
the  dilettante?  No  man  can  sup  with  Him  who 
does  not  share  His  passion.  ^*If  so  be  that  we 
suffer  with  Him  that  we  may  be  also  glorified  to- 
gether" is  the  ringing  challenge  to  the  Church  at 
Laodicea. 

How  his  heart  blazes  as  the  spirit  says  to 
Archippus,  lift  your  eyes  to  the  far  horizon,  ^  ^  To 
him  that  overcometh  will  I  grant  to  sit  with  me 
in  my  Father's  throne."  You  must  pay  the  price 
in  sweat  and  toil,  in  consuming  anxiety,  and 
bloody  travail,  but  if  you  will  do  that  you  may 
be  an  overcomer.  All  that  is  mine  is  thine.  As 
I  paid  the  price  and  overcame  and  am  sat  down 
with  my  Father  in  His  throne,  so  will  I  grant  to 
you  to  share  my  glory. 

0  Archippus,  take  heed  to  the  ministry  which 
thou  hast  received  from  the  Lord  that  thou  ful- 
fill it.  *^He  that  hath  an  ear,  let  him  hear  what 
the  spirit  saith  unto  the  churches!" 


CHAPTEE  XI 

THE   PASTOR   AT   PHILADELPHIA 

It  is  an  interesting  coincidence  that  the  two 
churches  which  received  no  rebuke — the  suffering 
church  at  Smyrna  and  the  weak  church  at  Phila- 
delphia— are  still  extant,  while  the  other  five 
churches  long  since  passed  away.  Gibbon  calls 
attention  to  the  fact  that  in  his  time  the  candle- 
stick of  Ephesus  had  been  removed ;  Laodicea  was 
peopled  with  wolves  and  foxes :  Sardis  was  a  mis- 
erable village,  the  god  of  Mohammed  was  invoked 
in  the  mosque,  and  the  population  of  Smyrna  was 
supported  by  the  foreign  trade  of  Franks  and 
Armenians.  Philadelphia  alone,  he  said,  had 
been  saved. 

We  do  not  affirm  that  the  preservation  of  a  Mos- 
lem town  where  once  a  Christian  pastor  shep- 
herded his  flock,  is  the  reward  of  his  faith  or  the 
result  of  his  self-sacrifice,  but  it  is  interesting  his- 
torically to  note  what  has  happened  to  seven 
cities  where  once  the  ministers  of  our  faith  pro- 
claimed their  message.  We  may  at  least  medi- 
tate with  Macaulay's  New  Zealander  on  the  ruins 
of  London  Bridge  that  the  luster  and  glory  of 
human  pride  last  but  a  little  while. 

Hear  the  message  to  the  pastor  of  Philadelphia! 

102 


THE  PASTOR  AT  PHILADELPHIA     103 

The  one  who  gives  it  says,  **He  that  is  holy  and 
true,  who  openeth  the  door  of  opportunity  and 
no  man  shutteth  and  shutteth  and  no  man  open- 
eth.'' May  each  of  us  hear  from  the  same  lips 
the  greeting  to  the  pastor  of  Philadelphia!  ^*I 
know  thy  works.  Behold  I  have  set  before  thee 
an  open  door  and  no  man  can  shut  it.''  Let  us 
thank  God  and  take  courage.  We  will  not  be  ex- 
alted above  measure  by  what  follows,  but  it  will 
keep  us  from  losing  heart  when  our  faith  is  tried. 
**Thou  hast  a  little  strength  and  hast  kept  my 
word  and  hast  not  denied  my  name."  Measured 
by  the  standards  of  ministers'  meetings  and  con- 
ferences, it  is  a  far  cry  from  the  stately,  famous 
church  at  Sardis  to  the  weak  church  at  Philadel- 
phia. There  are  plenty  of  ministers  who  are  anx- 
ious about  the  health  of  the  pastor  at  Sardis, 
or  if  he  is  still  robust  they  wonder  how  long  before 
he  will  be  called  to  a  secretaryship  or  be  elected 
Bishop.  They  would  gladly  undertake  to  fill  his 
shoes  at  Sardis,  but  Philadelphia  is  a  bird  of  an- 
other feather.  There  is  no  competition  for  that 
pulpit. 

When  I  was  a  stripling  and  was  sent  to  my  first 
charge  a  minister  who  had  been  a  pastor  there 
years  before  said,  **I  congratulate  you  on  your 
appointment."  **Is  it  then  a  fine  field  for  a 
pastor?"  **I  did  not  say  that,  but  I  congratulate 
you  that  you  have  been  sent  to  so  poor  a  church 
that  you  can  never  be  sent  to  a  poorer."    Ah,  no. 


104         PASTOR  AND  EVANGELIST 

the  pastor  at  Philadelphia  does  not  have  to  worry 
for  fear  some  one  will  steal  his  job,  but  if  he  only 
knew  it,  it  is  infinitely  better  to  have  an  open 
door  in  Philadelphia  than  a  closed  door  in  Sardis. 
That  first  appointment  of  mine  furnished  a  field 
for  the  best  that  was  in  me  and  I  treasure  to-day 
the  lessons  I  learned  there,  the  faith  I  gained 
there  and  the  Christian  fellowship  I  found  there. 
Any  place  where  a  soul  can  be  near  to  God  is  a 
great  place,  hard  by  the  gates  of  heaven. 

0  pastor  at  Philadelphia,  the  little  church  with 
the  little  strength,  you  are  yet  to  save  the  world. 
The  streams  of  influence  like  the  springs  of  the 
river  rise  in  quiet  places.  The  world's  great  men 
were  mostly  born  in  humble  places  and  cradled 
in  want  and  toil.  Presidents,  senators,  million- 
aires, laymen  and  ministers  were  born  on  the  farm 
and  in  the  little  village.  Let  the  little  Christian 
chapel  and  schoolhouse  look  after  them  in  their 
youth,  for  some  day  they  will  be  seated  in  the 
seats  of  the  mighty  and  they  will  be  on  the  ofiicial 
board  at  Sardis. 

**Thou  hast  a  little  strength  and  hast  kept  my 
word."  You  may  have  but  a  little  strength  but 
God  is  omnipotent  and  His  strength  is  yours  for 
the  asking.  Herein  is  your  strength:  **Thou  hast 
kept  my  word  and  hast  not  denied  my  name."  An 
old  Scotch  Covenantor  quaintly  says,  **The  min- 
ister at  Philadelphia  had  but  little  strength  of 
intellect  and  little  learning,  but  what  he  lacked 


THE  PASTOR  AT  PHILADELPHIA     105 

on  the  mere  mental  side  was  more  than  made  up 
to  him  on  the  moral  and  spiritual  side.  And  that 
wisest  by  far  of  all  the  seven  ministers  of  Asia 
soon  found  out  where  his  true  strength  lay  and 
threw  himself  with  all  his  weakness  upon  his  true 
strength.  In  his  preaching  whatever  his  theme 
was,  he  soon  found  his  way  to  Jesus.  That  was 
the  name  above  every  name  and  he  was  never  tired 
of  proclaiming  it.  So  it  was  that  he  received  that 
greatest  encomium:  *^Thou  hast  not  denied  my 
name.'' 

It  was  lamented  by  a  puritan  preacher  that  the 
men  of  his  time  were  so  busy  with  the  signs  of 
the  times  and  the  direction  of  the  wind  called 
Euroclydon  and  the  date  when  the  Gospels  were 
written  that  they  had  no  strength  left  to  proclaim 
the  Gospel  itself.  Alexander  White  adds:  **I 
have  myself,  to  my  confusion  of  face,  I  confess, 
wasted  many  a  precious  hour  in  this  pulpit  on 
Euroclydon  and  on  the  time  when  the  Prophets 
and  the  Psalms  and  the  Gospels  were  written,  but 
I  am  beginning  now  to  number  my  days  and  I  am, 
as  you  will  witness,  turning  my  own  attention  and 
vours  far  more  to  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ  in 
imitation  of  the  minister  at  Philadelphia." 

There  are  fine  opportunities  now  and  many 
helps  so  that  the  minister  of  Philadelphia  can 
hope  to  develop  the  little  strength  of  his  mentality 
and  of  his  scholarship.  He  must  needs  apply 
himself  to  these.    It  is  God's  way  of  increasing 


106         PASTOR  AND  EVANGELIST 

his  power,  but  let  him  not  forget  that  for  every 
hour  he  spends  in  critical  study,  he  must  spend 
another  in  holy  meditation  and  on  his  knees.  If 
you  are  the  pastor  you  must  feed  your  flock. 
There  is  no  food  in  criticism.  Your  people  will 
starve  to  death  on  it.  Even  were  you  able  to 
undertake  it  after  some  fashion,  you  had  better 
leave  that  to  the  men  who  spend  their  time  at  it. 
You  give  your  time  to  the  ministry.  Have  carved 
in  the  timber  over  the  window  in  your  study, 
where  you  can  see  it  every  time  you  lift  your  eyes 
and  on  the  back  of  the  pulpit  where  you  will  face 
it  before  you  rise  to  preach,  the  same  words  that 
Bonar  had  carved  in  the  little  parsonage  of  his 
first  charge  and  in  his  great  city  church  at  Glas- 
gow— ^*He  that  winneth  souls  is  wise.''  And  put 
at  the  end  of  the  church  where  you  can  see  it  all 
through  the  sermon  the  same  cry  which  is  cut  on 
the  faces  of  your  people,  **Sir,  we  would  see 
Jesus." 

**  Because  thou  hast  kept  the  word  of  my 
patience,  I  also  will  keep  thee  from  the  hour  of 
thy  temptation  which  shall  come  upon  all  the  earth 
to  try  them  that  dwell  upon  the  earth."  That 
does  not  mean  that  a  minister  will  have  no  tempta- 
tions. His  Master  faced  them  in  the  wilderness 
and  he  will  have  to  face  them  in  the  study,  on 
the  street,  and  in  the  pulpit.  By  so  much  as  he 
stands  for  attainments  of  any  sort,  by  so  much 
his  temptations  will  be  multiplied.    Is  he  a  great 


THE  PASTOR  AT  PHILADELPHIA     107 

preacher  1  He  will  look  over  his  congregation  and 
say,  *' Behold  this  great  Babylon  which  I  myself 
have  builded.  I  do  not  need  God's  help.  I  can 
go  alone/'  If  his  pews  are  empty,  he  will  be 
tempted  to  lose  his  faith  and  to  surrender  to 
despair.  If  people  speak  him  fair,  he  will  be 
putfed  np,  and  when  he  has  lost  his  simplicity  and 
his  humility  there  is  poverty  for  his  soul.  When 
people  are  jealous  of  his  power  or  repudiate  his 
zeal  in  their  behalf,  when  old  friends  turn  away 
from  him  because  he  has  spoken  the  truth — all  this 
will  hurt  unspeakably,  and  at  times  he  may  almost 
be  ready  to  curse  God  and  die.  But  let  him  never 
forget  that  God  has  put  an  open  door  before  him, 
an  open  door  into  the  secret  place  of  His  own 
presence,  where  his  strength  may  be  renewed, 
where  he  may  mount  up  on  wings  as  eagles,  run 
and  not  be  weary,  walk  and  not  faint.  While  we 
are  in  the  world  we  shall  have  temptations,  but 
hear  the  Master  saying,  *'Be  of  good  cheer,  I  have 
overcome  the  world."  ** Behold  I  come  quickly." 
As  to  the  final  coming  of  our  blessed  Lord  to 
terminate  the  evil  and  diadem  the  right,  there 
may  be  a  difference  in  the  convictions  of  men. 
That  time  may  be  nearer  or  farther  away  than 
we  think,  but  this  is  true  for  every  one  of  us — 
** Behold  I  come  quickly."  It  may  be  at  mom,  or 
noon  or  eve ;  any  day  may  be  the  last  and  we  do 
well  to  ask  ourselves  each  day,  *^Are  there  any 
last  things  I  should  like  to  have  done,  are  there 


108         PASTOR  AND  EVANGELIST 

any  little  odds  and  ends  of  service  that  I  would 
be  glad  to  accomplish  before  the  shadows  fall?" 
There  is  no  sorrow  but  only  joy  in  that  sense  of 
the  immanence  of  Him  whom  our  soul  loveth. 
Since  He  may  come  at  any  time,  therefore,  ^^hold 
fast  that  which  thou  hast  that  no  man  take  thy 
crown.''  I  do  not  think  that  there  is  a  selfish 
thought  behind  this  exhortation  to  horde  what 
one  has  or  to  see  to  it  that  nobody  else  gets  the 
reputation  and  reward  for  work  that  we  have 
done.  The  only  crowning  that  God  knows  any- 
thing about  is  the  crowning  of  the  faithful.  He 
did  not  say,  **Be  thou  successful  and  I  will  give 
thee  a  crown  of  life."  He  only  said,  *^Be  thou 
faithful."  Hold  to  thy  task  a  little  longer.  The 
end  of  it  may  be  nearer  than  you  think.  Let  no 
one  take  the  crown  that  belongs  to  you.  See  to 
it  that  you  are  found  in  your  place.  *^He  that 
overcometh  will  I  make  a  pillar  in  the  temple  of 
my  God  and  he  shall  go  no  more  out."  Think 
of  it,  little  man,  to  be  a  part  of  the  living  temple 
of  God  forever! 

Philadelphia  was  overthrown  by  earthquakes 
again  and  again.  Any  temple  or  shrine  might  be 
overwhelmed  in  the  night,  but  no  such  cataclysm 
shall  befall  the  temple  of  my  God.  Thy  penny 
rushlight  may  be  a  star  to  shine  forever  and 
upon  that  noble  column  which  God  has  called  you 
to  set  up  there  may  be  written  a  new  name.  May 
I  be  there  to  see ! 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE   PASTOK-EVANGELIST 'S   OUTLOOK 

What  then  is  a  pastor?  The  passage  in  the 
New  Testament  which  we  translate,  ^^I  am  the 
good  shepherd"  stands  in  the  Vulgate  *^Ego  sum 
Pastor  bonus."  So  the  function  of  the  pastor  is 
the  function  of  a  shepherd.  But  when  Jesus  said, 
**I  am  the  good  shepherd,"  he  also  said,  ^*The 
good  shepherd  giveth  his  life  for  the  sheep."  So 
the  business  of  the  pastor  is  a  business  of  life ;  for 
life  and,  if  necessary,  to  the  death ;  of  life  because 
the  great  Pastor  said,  **I  am  come  that  ye  might 
have  life  and  that  ye  might  have  it  more  abun- 
dantly ; ' ';  unto  death,  for  the  good  Pastor  said, 
**The  good  pastor  giveth  his  life  for  the  sheep. 
An  hireling  will  flee  because  he  is  an  hireling  and 
careth  not  for  the  sheep."  Just  in  proportion 
as  one  is  a  good  pastor  he  will,  like  his  Master, 
give  his  life  for  the  sheep.  Now  the  shepherd's 
business  is  to  look  after  those  who  are  going 
astray.  Jesus  said  in  substance,  *  *  You  cannot  edu- 
cate the  world  into  a  new  life ;  you  have  to  suffer 
for  men,  and  if  necessary  die  for  them."  Jesus 
was  indeed  a  teacher,  and  He  had  to  educate  and 
instruct,  but  He  says  that  what  He  came  for  was 
^*to  seek  and  to  save  that  which  was  being  lost." 

109 


no         PASTOR  AND  EVANGELIST 

The  lost  man,  like  the  lost  sheep  does  not  come 
home  of  himself.  He  has  to  be  sought.  It  is  not 
enough  to  build  your  church  and  to  stand  in  your 
pulpit  and  say  **Come."  You  have  to  go  out  and 
seek,  if  you  would  save.  When  the  passion  for 
souls  dies  out  then  all  sense  of  the  reality  of  reli- 
gion perishes.  It  is  when  we  see  Him  healing 
men  that  we  have  faith  in  the  great  physician; 
it  is  when  we  see  the  lost  being  saved  that  we 
believe  in  Christianity,  and  when  the  passion  for 
the  lost  dies  out  in  the  pulpit,  men  will  shiver 
around  its  cold  ashes  instead  of  warming  their 
souls  at  the  blaze  of  a  light  which  was  kindled  in 
the  heavens. 

Hoover  said  the  other  day  that  **  nothing  could 
save  the  soul  of  the  nation  and  of  the  Armament 
Conference  except  to  evangelize  them.'' 

(Let  us  get  then  a  clear  conception  of  what  the 
pastor  is.  The  pastoral  function  is  nothing  more 
nor  less  than  to  watch  over  the  sheep  and  to 
bring  those  who  are  straying  back  into  the  folcj,^ 
Is  it  not  time  to  go  back  to  the  one  business  for 
which  the  Church  of  God  was  organized  and 
inspired  ?  They  are  telling  us  that  over  ninety  per 
cent  of  our  laws  are  for  property  and  ten  per 
cent  for  life.  How  large  is  the  proportion  of  our 
endeavor  that  is  directed  to  the  form  of  things 
and  how  much  to  the  life  which  giveth  form  to 
the  Church!  Are  we  not  long  on  church  archi- 
tecture and  church  millinery  and  theological  dis- 


PASTOE-EVANGELIST'S  OUTLOOK     111 

quisitions  and  critical  subtleties,  and  short  on 
Christian  love?  Is  it  not  certain  that  the  only 
truth  which  amounts  to  anything  is  felt  truth! 
Is  it  not  sight  that  we  need  at  present  more  than 
light?  The  world  is  full  of  light  if  only  we  have 
eyes  to  see  it.  What  will  our  knowledge  profit 
us  without  love.  **No  more,"  said  Wesley,  ^4han 
it  profits  the  devil  and  his  angels.''  Is  it  worth 
while  to  spend  our  strength  on  purely  intellectual 
truths?  In  what  church  was  a  heresy  trial  ever 
followed  by  penitents  crowding  to  the  altar?  It 
has  been  said  that  a  heresy  trial  is  like  a  dog 
fight  in  a  flower  garden ;  the  only  things  that  are 
settled  are  the  flowers. 

The  world  wants  Christ;  the  Christ  of  purity 
and  of  sympathy,  and  of  the  passionate  and  yearn- 
ing soul.  There  is  a  story  of  a  mission  worker 
speaking  at  a  socialist  meeting  when  a  woman, 
with  eyes  aflame,  cried:  **Do  we  have  to  have  this 
blankety,  blank  religion  rammed  down  our 
throats?  So  far  as  I  am  concerned  I  wish  every 
sky  pilot  could  be  stood  up  against  a  wall  and 
shot."  But  the  sky  pilot,  in  the  spirit  of  his  Mas- 
ter, sparred  for  time  until  the  crowd  permitted 
him  to  go  on,  and  when  his  address  on  the  love  of 
his  Lord  was  over,  the  black-eyed  vixen  said,  ^*Is 
that  what  the  Church  wants  to  tell  us?  Is  that 
the  message  of  Christianity?  Why  haven't  we 
heard  it  before?  Come  again  and  tell  us  more 
about  it." 


112         PASTOR  AND  EVANGELIST 

Everything  else  has  been  preached  from  the 
pulpit  and  every  nostrum  has  been  tried.  Many 
who  thought  they  had  some  other  message  than 
the  old  one  have  at  last  turned  to  the  Master  and 
said,  ''Why  could  not  we  cast  him  outf  They 
have  heard  from  the  Master,  ''This  kind  cometh 
not  forth  but  by  prayer  and  devotion  and  the  lov- 
ing soul."  The  evangel  of  the  cross  is  old  news 
and  new  news  and  good  news,  and  the  only  news 
that  a  sinner  needs  in  any  age  of  the  world  and 
in  any  condition  of  sin.  Human  nature  now  is 
the  same  thing  that  it  was  when  Pharaoh  ruled 
in  Egypt  and  Attic  poets  sang  and  devotees 
poured  their  libations  at  the  shrine  of  Diana  and 
amid  the  mysteries  of  Isis.  Sorrow  and  sin  and 
shame  and  death  have  not  gone  out  of  fashion. 
In  the  midst  of  all  materialism  and  all  wander- 
ings away  from  God,  the  great  silent  stars  look 
down  and  seem  to  say,  "Whither  so  fast,  little 
men?"  The  mourners  still  go  about  the  streets, 
and  the  men,  who  by  the  grace  of  God  are  saving 
the  world,  cry  out — ' '  Oh,  come  let  us  worship  and 
bow  down;  let  us  kneel  before  the  Lord,  our 
Maker."  No  modem  lights  can  put  out  the  old 
ones.  You  cannot  cut  away  the  azure  arch  with 
a  sword,  nor  with  all  your  cannonading  overwhelm 
the  stars.  Why  should  we  fool  with  the  nostrums 
lof  little  men  while  Jesus  stands  in  His  resur- 
rected glory  saying,  "All  power  is  given  unto  me 
in  heaven^and  in  earth.    Go  quickly  everywhere. 


PASTOR-EVANGELIST'S  OUTLOOK     113 

Lo,  I  am  with  you  even  unto  the  end  of  the  world. ' ' 
If  the  pastor  is  really  the  shepherd  of  the  sheep, 
the  one  attribute  which  will  stand  out  above  all 
others  is  love  for  the  sheep.  If  he  does  not  love 
them  and  does  not  know  them  well  enough  to  call 
them  by  name,  he  will  have  no  influence  with  them. 
Long  ago  on  the  slope  of  Hermon,  I  said  to  an 
Arab  shepherd,  **Is  it  true  that  you  have  a  name 
for  each  one  of  your  sheep,  and  do  they  know  it 
and  will  they  answer  it  when  you  call?"  He  said, 
**It  is  true."  *^Then,"  I  said,  **will  you  please 
call  some  of  them  to  you!"  He  hesitated  a  mo- 
ment and  said,  *  *  This  is  their  feeding  time.  It  is 
the  worst  time  in  the  day  to  call  them."  ^*Ah," 
thought  I,  *4s  it  not  true  with  the  great  Shepherd 
that  many  of  His  sheep  are  so  busy  in  the  'feed- 
ing time'  that  they  do  not  hear  the  voice  of  the 
good  Shepherd!"  **But,"  said  the  Arab  to  me, 
'*I  think  I  may  still  be  able  to  make  them  hear 
me."  Then  he  called  in  a  tone  as  sweet  as  might 
have  been  sounded  at  the  door  of  Jacob's  tent 
when  he  called  for  Rachel.  On  the  second  repe- 
tition of  the  name  a  sheep,  perhaps  two  thirds  as 
far  away  as  any,  lifted  her  head,  waited  a  moment 
as  if  to  be  sure,  then  when  the  call  was  repeated 
she  bounded  at  the  top  of  her  speed  and  came  up 
to  the  shepherd  and  laid  her  head  lovingly  against 
him.  No  one  but  a  loving  shepherd  could  do  that 
in  Arabia  or  anywhere  else. 
What  would  have  happened   if,   when   Mary 


114         PASTOR  AND  EVANGELIST 

came  to  Simon  ^s  feast  with  her  alabaster  box, 
Jesus  had  not  been  there?  And  what  would  have 
happened  when  the  prodigal  came  back  if  there 
had  been  nobody  at  home  but  the  elder  brother? 
The  pastor  must  care  for  his  sheep,  and  care  to 
care.  If  he  wears  a  mask,  some  day  it  will  slip ; 
if  he  simulates  an  interest  which  he  does  not  really 
feel,  discovery  is  not  far  away;  and  in  some 
stormy  night  or  in  some  busy  day,  his  self -con- 
sciousness will  make  itself  so  clear  that  all  the 
world  will  know  that  he  is  an  hireling  and  the 
sheep  are  not  his. 

With  that  love  for  the  sheep  there  will  go  a 
solicitude  which  will  brook  no  denial.  If  the  tro- 
phies of  Miltiades  would  not  allow  the  younger 
Greeks  to  sleep,  the  pastor  will  realize  that  a 
battle  is  on  greater  than  in  the  Valley  of  Elah; 
that  the  World  is  battling  for  the  life  of  the  pas- 
tor's flock,  and  is  taking  the  Flesh  and  the  Devil 
to  bear  him  awful  company.  If  the  pastor  really 
at  heart  feels  there  is  not  much  difference  between 
him  who  serveth  God  and  him  who  serveth  Him 
not,  if  he  thinks  that  because  a  man  lives  in  a 
three-story  house  and  keeps  an  automobile  and 
carries  a  cane  and  uses  visiting  cards  he  is,  there- 
fore, not  far  from  the  Kingdom  of  God,  he  will 
not  be  likely  to  give  up  an  afternoon  on  the  golf 
links  to  make  sure  that  he  has  crossed  the  line 
into  that  Kingdom.  But  if  he  realizes  that  there 
is  an  infinite  distance  between  those  born  of  the 


PASTOR-EVANGELIST'S  OUTLOOK     115 

flesh  and  those  born  of  the  spirit,  that  the  declara- 
tion of  the  Master  is  as  true  for  the  rich  as  for 
the  poor,  as  true  for  the  learned  as  the  ignorant, 
**Ye  must  be  born  again,"  he  will  give  up  any 
engagement  and  pay  any  price  to  see  that  new 
birth  accomplished.  All  the  thirty-nine  articles 
are  condensed  into  three  in  the  hour  when  life  is 
trembling  in  the  balance.  **Ye  must  be  born 
again, ' '  you  can  be  born  again,  and  now  is  the  time. 


CHAPTER  Xni 

THE  pastor-evangelist's   MESSAGE 

What  the  pastor  is  will  always  speak  louder 
than  what  he  says ;  so  in  any  estimate  of  the  pas- 
tor's message,  let  us  begin  with  himself.  There 
is  a  familiar  story  of  an  old  monk  who  took  with 
him  a  novice  from  the  monastery  and  said :  *  *  Let 
us  go  down  into  the  town  and  preach."  They 
passed  through  the  streets  and  the  market  place, 
saw  men  at  their  work  and  little  children  at  their 
play,  and  at  last  took  the  winding  road  toward 
the  monastery.  **When  are  we  going  to  preach?'' 
asked  the  novice.  '*We  have  been  preaching  all 
the  time,"  was  the  quick  response. 

There  is  an  automatic  influence  which  goes 
forth  like  an  exhalation  from  a  good  life  and  of 
that  the  pastor  may  be  quite  unaware.  Moses 
wist  not  that  his  face  shone  when  he  came  down 
from  the  mount.  The  Shulamite  woman,  watching 
Elisha,  said:  ^*I  perceive  that  this  is  a  holy  man 
of  God  that  passeth  by  us  continually."  It  was 
for  that  reason  that  she  sought  him  when  death 
stalked  in  at  the  door.  Racing  with  death  she 
crossed  the  great  valley  to  Carmel.  She  would 
not  be  satisfied  with  his  staff  or  his  servants; 
her  trust  was  in  God's  prophet.    ^*As  the  Lord 

116 


PASTOR-EVANGELIST'S  MESSAGE     117 

liveth  and  as  thy  soul  liveth,  I  will  not  leave 
thee."  Her  faith  was  rewarded  when  the  prophet 
put  his  heart  to  the  heart  of  the  child,  lip  to  lip 
and  body  to  body,  and  life  came  back. 

Here  stands  Tennyson  with  his  singing  robes 
about  him  and  chants  the  story  of  the  spotless 
Sir  Galahad: 

^' While  Galahad  thus  spoke,  his  eye  dwelling  on 

mine 
Drew  me  with  power  upon  me,  till  I  grew  one 
with  him  to  believe  as  he  believed." 

Dr.  W.  V.  Kelley  quotes  the  stately  words  of 
Macaulay : 

**It  was  before  the  deity  embodied  in  a  human 
form,  walking  among  men,  partaking  of  their  in- 
firmities, leaning  on  their  bosoms,  weeping  over 
their  graves,  slumbering  in  the  manger,  bleeding 
on  the  cross,  that  the  prejudices  of  the  synagogue, 
and  the  doubts  of  the  academy,  and  the  pride  of 
the  Portico  and  the  fasces  of  the  lictor  and  the 
swords  of  thirty  legions  were  humbled  in  the 
dust." 

We  shall  now  pass  to  consider  with  some  defi- 
niteness  the  form  of  the  evangelistic  message 
which  the  pastor's  lips  must  proclaim. 

One  never-to-be-forgotten  day  in  the  life  of  a 
king  and  of  a  prophet,  Zedekiah  took  Jeremiah 
out  of  prison  and  brought  him  to  the  palace  and 


118         PASTOR  AND  EVANGELIST 

said  to  him  secretly,  *'Is  there  any  word  from 
the  Lord?'*  and  Jeremiah  answered,  *' There  is.'' 
Now  whether  they  own  it  or  not,  that  is  the  query 
in  the  heart  and  on  the  lips  of  every  thoughtful 
person  who  goes  to  church.  The  preacher's  one 
business  is  to  keep  God  before  him.  If  I  leave  my 
home  to-day  and  forego  my  books,  or  my  games, 
or  my  friends,  or  my  family,  will  it  be  worth 
while?  Shall  I  hear  an  essay,  or  a  disquisition, 
or  a  message  which  will  be  the  word  of  a  man  with 
no  more  of  training  or  experience  than  I  have — 
a  thing  that  I  could  evolve  from  my  conscious  or 
sub-conscious  mind,  or  will  it  be  a  message  which 
has  been  forged  in  spiritual  heat  and  tempered 
of  the  Holy  Spirit  to  reach  my  soul,  so  that  I  shall 
say,  **It  is  the  Lord.  Let  Him  speak  for  His 
servant  heareth?" 

When  one  comes  to  think  of  it,  is  there  a  sight 
more  impressive  than  the  attitude  of  a  hundred 
or  a  thousand  people  waiting  quiescent  to  hear 
what  another  man  will  say  about  the  life  which  is 
eternal!  If  the  man  who  listens  hears  only  a  hu- 
man voice  and  a  human  message,  will  he  not  say, 
**I  asked  for  bread  and  have  received  a  stone"? 
Do  you  blame  him  if  he  does  not  come  again? 

And  what  is  the  effect  on  the  man  who  has 
spoken?  He  knows  he  had  no  message  from  the 
Lord;  he  knows  he  is  performing  a  useless  func- 
tion, like  some  old  sibyl  who  prophesied  in  ambigu- 
ous terms  about  matters  concerning  which  she 


PASTOR-EVANGELIST'S  MESSAGE     119 

had  no  knowledge.  Compare  such  a  message  with 
Peter's  on  the  day  of  Pentecost,  or  PauPs  at  Phil- 
ippi,  or  on  Mars  Hill,  or  at  Ephesus,  or  at  the 
chief  captain's  palace,  or  before  Festus  or  Agrippa 
at  Caesarea.  Would  there  be  any  question 
whether  there  was  any  word  from  the  Lord,  if 
we  had  listened  to  him  ?  Ought  not  every  preacher 
to  say: 

"Take  me;  who  am  not  meet 
One  word  of  that  gTeat  story  to  repeat. 
"Wash  my  lips  clean  that  I  may  bring 
To  men  the  message  which  the  angels  sing." 

We  are  sometimes  told  that  the  modern  minister 
must  get  a  new  vocabulary,  that  the  old  one  is 
inadequate  and  outgrown.  Perhaps  that  is  true, 
but  is  it  not  also  true  that  we  shall  have  to  get  a 
new  vocabulary  or  a  new  experience!  The  one 
we  have  been  using  is  too  big  for  our  message.  If 
it  is  inadequate,  is  it  not  because  we  use  words 
whose  meaning  we  do  not  know  by  experience? 
If  our  message  is  only  words,  are  we  not  like 
birds  on  some  telegraph  wire  who  are  all  uncon- 
scious of  the  great  messages  which  throb  under 
their  feet? 

In  ^^The  Glass  of  Fashion"  a  ** Gentleman  with 
a  Duster"  quotes  Goethe  as  saying  that  wha^ 
saved  him  was  '^ inner  earnestness/*  '^It  was  the 
same  thing,"  says  the  author,  ''that  saved  Mrs. 
Gladstone  from  becoming  a  Margot  Asquith,  and 


120         PASTOR  AND  EVANGELIST 

for  lack  of  which  society  is  now  driven  far  out 
of  its  course  of  right  and  wrong.  Russia  has  a 
thousand  qualities  which  deserve  the  admiration 
of  mankind,  but  lacking  the  one  quality  of  moral 
earnestness  it  is  stricken  with  death. 

**  Philosophy  sought  to  preserve  the  moral  char- 
acter by  improving  the  ethics.  Christianity  re- 
versed the  order  and  by  that  revolutionized  human 
thought.  Thus  she  swept  away  the  rank  vapor 
which  steamed  up  from  the  corrupt  heart.'' 

There  are  great  thoughts  to  bear  in  mind  when 
we  come  to  bring  a  message  to  men  out  of  the 
unseen  holy.  Until  thought  becomes  a  passion, 
it  seldom  becomes  a  power.  It  was  with  this  in 
mind  that  Professor  William  James  wrote : 

*^^  I  believe  that  feeling  is  the  deepest  source  of 
religion  and  that  philosophical  and  theological 
formulae  are  secondary  products  like  translating 
into  another  tongue." 

The  message  that  the  world  is  dying  for  is  the 
message  that  has  conviction  in  it,  that  must  be 
delivered,  that  has  been  wrought  in  the  hot  fires 
of  the  preacher's  own  spiritual  experience.  It 
must  be  as  much  up-to-date  as  the  last  pang  of 
the  listener's  conscience,  and  as  dateless  as  the 
eternal  love  which  had  its  birth  in  the  heart 
of  God. 

"We  talk  about  many  things  that  do  not  count. 
,We  raise  men  of  straw  for  the  sake  of  showing 


PASTOR-EVANGELIST'S  MESSAGE     121 

how  we  can  demolish  them.  We  face  the  doubts 
of  men  with  ponderous  broadsides  of  logic  and 
rhetoric.  Most  of  those  doubts  are  pure  subter- 
fuges. The  New  Testament  wisely  puts  heresy 
among  the  evils  of  the  flesh.  Say  ye  to  the  right- 
eous, '  ^  It  shall  be  well  with  him. ' '  No  man  doubts 
that  in  this  or  any  other  world.  *  *  Say  ye  to  the 
wicked,  It  shall  be  ill  with  him."  No  man  doubts 
that  in  heaven  or  earth  or  hell.  AVhy  not  preach 
it  then  until  the  wills  of  men  are  moved  to  act  in 
harmony  with  it?  No  man  doubts  that  he  who 
walks  with  God  walks  a  way  that  is  happier  than 
the  path  of  dalliance,  and  brings  the  soul  into  de- 
lectable experiences.  Even  the  wicked  know  that 
*  *  the  path  of  the  just  is  as  the  shining  light  which 
shineth  brighter  and  brighter  until  the  perfect 
day. ' '  Tell  men  to  put  their  doubts  in  their  pock- 
ets and  go  to  walking  with  God,  and  some  day 
when  they  feel  for  their  doubts  they  will  find  they 
have  utterly  vanished.  Don't  bother  with  little 
matters,  life  is  too  short  and  too  big.  Eternal 
destinies  are  in  the  balance.  Doors  of  time  and 
opportunity  are  swinging,  and  the  last  door,  open- 
ing to  the  great  Adventure  which  men  call  Death 
and  the  angels  call  Life,  is  just  ahead.  Preach 
the  word  t 


CHAPTER  XIV 

THE   pastor-evangelist's   KEWAUD 

The  reward  of  the  evangelistic  pastor  is  three- 
fold. First,  the  sense  of  fellowship  with  his  Lord. 
He  knows  that  his  Master  came  to  seek  and  to 
save  the  lost,  and  now  at  last  he  is  certain  that 
he  can  see  the  footprints  of  his  Lord  in  the  path 
which  he  treads  as  a  seeker  after  those  who  have 
gone  astray.  Whenever  his  heart  is  burdened 
and  his  faith  is  like  to  fail,  whenever  his  mind  and 
body  are  alike  weary,  he  recalls  for  himself  the 
life-giving  message,  ** If  so  be  that  we  suffer  with 
him  that  we  may  be  glorified  together."  It  is  this 
feeling  that  will  vitalize  his  words.  They  will  be 
charged  with  a  current  that  quickens  and  thrills. 
There  are  many  men  who  are  zealous  advocates  of 
the  truth  for  the  truth's  sake.  It  is  the  truth 
which  they  apostrophize  and  for  which  they  would 
be  willing  to  go  to  the  stake,  but  that  is  not  the 
kind  of  truth  that  Jesus  talked  about. 

Dr.  Dale,  speaking  at  the  last  as  he  looked 
back  over  his  ministrv,  said :  **I  fear  that  the  truth 
occupies  too  large  a  place  in  my  thought  and  that 
I  have  been  too  much  occupied  with  the  instrument 
for  effecting  the  ends  of  the  ministry,  too  little 
with  the  actual  persons  to  be  restored  to  Grod,*' 

122 


PASTOE-EYAXGELIST'S  EEWAED     123 

and  so  he  says:  **If  the  hearers  felt  that  the 
preacher's  earnestness  was  about  themselves  and 
not  merely  about  what  he  believed  to  be  the  truth 
the  impression  would  be  altogether  different/* 
It  is  when  we  realize  that  we  are  giving  hands 
and  feet  to  take  the  place  of  those  that  were  nailed 
upon  the  cross  that  we  get  a  sense — a  compelling 
sense — of  what  it  means  to  have  a  passionate 
longing  to  see  men  brought  to  Christ.  How  glo- 
rious it  is  to  feel  that,  according  to  our  measure 
we  are  thinking  the  thoughts  of  Jesus  after  Him 
and  giving  ourselves  to  the  same  absorbing  task 
which  fairly  consumed  our  Lord.  TTell  says  Dr. 
Jackson,  ''This  passion  to  win  men  is  the  foun- 
tain of  all  preaching  that  is  of  the  prophetic 
order."  He  calls  attention  to  the  fact  that  there 
were  in  Great  Britain  in  the  seventeenth  century 
four  great  preachers  living  and  working  side  by 
side — Samuel  Rutherford,  Joseph  Alleinne,  John 
Bunyan  and  Richard  Baxter.  They  were  men  of 
widely  varied  gifts  and  attainments,  but  in  the 
ministry  of  each  the  same  high  note  of  spiritual 
passion  is  heard.  ''Many  a  time  I  thought," 
writes  a  contemporary  of  Rutherford,  "he  would 
have  flown  out  of  the  pulpit  when  he  came  to 
speak  of  Jesus  Christ."  Infinitely  and  insatiably 
greedy  for  the  conversion  of  souls,  Alleinne 
preached  his  gospel  with  shouting  voice,  flashing 
eye  and  a  soul  on  fire  with  love.  "In  my  preach- 
ing," says  Bunyan,  "I  have  reaUy  been  in  pain 


124         PASTOR  AND  EVANGELIST 

and  have,  as  it  were,  travailed  to  bring  forth  chil- 
dren to  God."  Baxter  questioned  himself  as  he 
stepped  into  his  pulpit,  and  the  ring  of  conscience 
was  in  his  ears,  ^*Dost  thou  believe  what  thou 
sayest?  Shouldst  thou  not  weep  over  such  a 
people  and  shouldst  thou  not  with  tears  interpret 
thy  words !  * '  Long  before,  the  same  passion  swept 
the  mighty  soul  of  Paul — a  desire  to  be  like  his 
Lord — and  so  it  is  written  that  he  was  **  con- 
strained by  the  word."  The  urgency  of  his  mes- 
sage was  like  fire  shut  up  in  his  bones.  For  the 
space  of  three  years,  he  tells  the  Ephesian  elders, 
"I  ceased  not  to  admonish  every  one  night  and 
day  with  tears."  "When  his  friends,  foreseeing 
his  danger,  besought  him  not  to  go  to  Jerusalem, 
he  said,  ''What  mean  ye  to  weep  and  break  my 
heart,  for  I  am  ready  not  to  be  bound  only,  but 
also  to  die  at  Jerusalem,  for  the  name  of  the  Lord 
Jesus."  So  utterly  did  his  Lord's  passion  con- 
trol him  that  he  said,  **For  my  brethren  and  com- 
panions' sake  I  could  wish  that  I  myself  were 
anathema  from  Christ."  It  is  glorious  to  feel  the 
thrill  which  these  great  souls  have  known:  to  be 
sure  that  with  unabating  urgency  the  call  which 
has  led  others  to  service  and  sacrifice  unspeakably 
glorious  is  thrilling  one's  soul. 

The  second  great  feature  in  the  reward  of  the 
evangelistic  pastor  is  the  evidence  of  changed 
lives — to  see  bad  men  becoming  good,  the  blas- 
phemer become  a  man  of  prayer,  the  drunkard 


PASTOR-EVANGELIST'S  EEWARD     125 

and  libertine  become  a  man  of  continence  and 
purity.  Old  things  pass  away  and  all  things  be- 
come new.  The  life  which  once  they  loved  they 
hate ;  the  life  which  once  they  hated,  they  now  love. 
Ah,  these  glorious  transformations — ^miracles  of 
grace !  No  man  need  have  any  troubles  about  the 
miracles  of  the  first  century,  when  every  year 
brings  him  fresh  miracles  that  are  as  much  more 
transporting  than  the  physical  miracles  of  the 
first  century  as  are  the  things  of  the  soul  superior 
to  those  of  the  body. 

What  are  the  things  which  give  joy  to  the  pas- 
tor as  the  shadows  of  the  evening  begin  to  fall? 
The  triumphs  of  oratory,  the  ''well-done"  of  the 
critics,  the  laudation  of  friends!  How  little  and 
far  away  all  this  seems.  The  voices  which  spoke 
them  have  in  many  cases  ceased  and  the  laurels 
of  those  years  are  dry  and  rusty  now.  A  new 
generation  has  arisen  and  the  old  triumplis  are 
forgotten  of  men ;  but  there  is  one  thing  the  glory 
of  which  never  fades  away — to  feel  that  there  are 
some  who  are  now  on  the  way  to  heaven,  who 
would  not  have  been  in  the  fold  but  for  your  shep- 
herding care;  to  realize  that  some  have  already 
passed  within  the  vale,  who,  so  far  as  human  wis- 
dom can  discern,  would  never  have  found  the  glori- 
ous reward  of  ser\ace  if  you  had  not  led  them  to 
Jesus ;  to  feel  the  joy  of  their  own  testimony  ring- 
ing in  your  soul,  and  to  know  that  for  all  eternity 
they  will  be  drawing  dividends  from  your  faithful 


126         PASTOR  AND  EVANGELIST 

service — that  will  make  one 's  old  age  liappy ;  that 
will  put  life  under  the  ribs  of  death;  that  will 
give  a  joy  which  is  unspeakable  and  full  of  glory ! 

The  third  reward,  which  comes  to  the  faithful 
evangelistic  pastor  is  the  reflex  influence  which 
comes  to  him  through  such  service  in  the  building 
up  of  his  own  spiritual  life.  Doing  Grod's  will, 
he  comes  to  know  of  the  doctrine ;  seeing  miracles 
of  grace,  he  comes  to  have  a  faith  that  is  utterly 
without  question — he  lives  in  an  atmosphere  of 
V  reality.  His  preaching  is  not  an  art;  it  is  an 
incarnation.  His  message  is  not  a  human  mes- 
sage; it  is  a  message  from  the  heart  of  God;  it 
keeps  his  own  soul  alive.  He  never  crosses  the 
dead  line  of  ministerial  inertness  and  despair. 

^^Are  you  not  lonely  T'  said  some  one  to  a  light- 
house keeper,  whose  home  was  far  from  the  shore. 
• '  Not  since  I  saved  my  first  man, ' '  was  the  thrill- 
ing answer  of  the  watcher  of  the  sea.  Said  a 
great  preacher  to  me  years  ago,  *^I  would  go  out 
from  this  elegant  home  of  mine  without  a  dollar, 
if  I  could  only  have  the  joy  of  knowing  I  had 
saved  a  soul.'* 

If  the  only  dividends  which  the  Christian  minis- 
ter gets  are  the  dividends  which  are  current  coin 
on  the  counters  of  the  merchants,  what  a  sad 
estate  is  his,  for  it  is  a  fact  which  is  humiliating 
to  the  saints  and  gives  occasion  to  the  enemies  of 
God  to  blaspheme  that  the  poorest  employer  of 
labor  in  America  is  not  the  Steel  Trust,  or  the 


PASTOR-EVANGELIST'S  EEWARD     127 

Oil  Trust,  or  the  coal  barons,  but  the  Christian 
Church.  It  is  the  scandal  of  the  age  that  street 
sweepers  and  ditch  diggers  are  better  paid  in 
the  coin  of  the  realm  than  the  men  whom  the 
Church  puts  into  her  pulpits  and  asks  to  minister 
to  her  in  the  holiest  experiences  in  life.  'Tis  true, 
'tis  pity,  and  pity  'tis,  'tis  true!"  ** There  was  a 
little  city  and  there  came  a  great  king  against  it 
and  besieged  it.  Now  there  was  found  in  it  a 
poor  wise  man  and  he  by  his  wisdom  delivered  the 
city;  yet  no  man  remembered  that  same  poor 
man." 

The  greatest  dividends  are  those  which  shine 
with  unabating  brilliancy  when  suns  and  systems 
are  no  more.  Giving  up  his  life,  the  pastor  finds 
it  again  in  the  changed  lives  of  those  twice-born. 
He  need  not  hold  his  hat  in  his  hand,  or  be  a 
mendicant  for  any  man's  support.  It  is  a  shame 
that  men  may  forget  him,  but  he  has  meat  to  eat 
that  the  world  knows  not  of.  As  Bunyan,  in 
prison,  still  walked  the  delectable  mountains  and 
had  white  angels  singing  lauds  for  him,  so  the 
faithful  pastor  has  evidence  of  God's  presence 
and  power  in  all  the  years,  which  gives  him  a  faith 
which  will  not  strike  its  colors  before  any  on- 
slaught which  doubt  can  make.  He  cries  out  with 
the  ring  of  eternal  victory  in  his  soul,  *^I  know 
whom  I  have  believed  and  am  persuaded  that  he 
is  able  to  keep  that  which  I  have  committed  unto 
him   against   that   day."     Hath   he   not   always 


128         PASTOR  AND  EVANGELIST 

friends,    that    faithful    shepherd, — himself,    his 
Maker  and  the  angel  Life ! 

To  his  converts  at  Macedonia,  Paul  exclaims, 
*^For  what  is  our  hope  or  joy  or  cause  of  re- 
joicing? Are  not  even  ye  in  the  presence  of  our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ  at  His  coming?  For  ye  are  our 
glory  and  joy.'' 

Sixteen  centuries  after  Paul,  John  Bunyan  made 
the  same  acclaim.  *^I  have  counted  as  if  I  had 
goodly  buildings  in  the  places  where  my  spiritual 
children  were  born.  My  heart  has  been  so 
wrapped  up  in  this  excellent  work  that  I  account 
myself  more  honored  of  God  than  if  He  had  made 
me  emperor  of  all  the  world  or  the  lord  of  all  the 
glory  of  the  earth  without  it." 

When  Dr.  Theodore  L.  Cuyler  came  to  the  end 
of  forty-four  years  of  Christian  ministry  he  took 
for  the  text  of  his  valedictory  sermon  the  words 
of  Paul  which  I  have  just  quoted.  In  that  ser- 
mon, he  said,  *' Converted  souls  are  jewels  in  the 
caskets  of  faithful  parents,  teachers  and  pastors. 
What  Lord  Elton  from  the  bar,  what  Webster 
from  the  Senate  Chamber,  what  Sir  Walter  Scott 
from  the  realm  of  romance,  what  Darwin  from 
the  field  of  science,  what  monarch  from  Wall 
Street  or  Lombard  Street  can  carry  his  laurels  or 
his  gold  up  to  the  judgment  seat  and  say,  'These 
are  my  joy  and  crown!'  The  laurels  and  the  gold 
will  be  dust — ashes.  But  if  so  humble  a  servant 
of  Jesus  Christ  as  your  pastor  can  ever  point  to 


PASTOR-EVANGELIST'S  REWARD     129 

the  gathered  flock  arrayed  in  white  before  the 
celestial  throne,  then  he  may  say,  *What  is  my 
hope,  or  joy  or  cause  of  rejoicing?  Are  not  even 
ye  in  the  presence  of  Christ  at  His  coming!'  '* 

"It  is  not  in  vain  that  he  has  trod 
This  lonely  and  toilsome  way. 
It  is  not  in  vain  that  he  has  wrought 
In  the  vineyard  all  the  day, 
For  the  soul  that  gives  is  the  soul  that  lives ; 
And  bearing  another's  load 
Doth  lighten  your  own  and  shorten  the  way 
And  brighten  the  homeward  road." 


THE  END 


Princeton  Theological  Seminary  Libraries 


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